


Missed Connections

by foodaddict



Series: Missed Connections [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dirty Dreams, F/M, Fluff, Love/Hate, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars University, Unresolved Sexual Tension, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foodaddict/pseuds/foodaddict
Summary: Prequel toReaching YouSnippets of life prior to them finally getting through to one another.CHAPTER 3“There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have.”---Ren’s voice was soft in an odd way . . . odd because it didn’t get her hackles up for once. “Where are you going?”“Home,” Rey said, waving her hand determinedly. That had to be a cab—it was bright yellow with black stripes and everything.“Alone?”She looked at him, the offer popping out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Unless you want to come along?”





	1. Aftermath (January)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! First, a big THANK YOU to everyone who read, liked, and left feedback on _Reaching You_ , the first installment of this series. If you read that, then you know that it was originally conceived as the end of _this_ fic, but I couldn’t bring myself to start a multi-chapter thing so I edited it heavily so that it was a stand-alone. It still is a stand-alone fic, and you can read it on its own, but since I’d already sketched these out, I thought I’d post them as a Prequel. 
> 
> I intended to post one chapter a month as a sort of build-up to what happened in _Reaching You_ (set in December). I got as far as April on prompts that I randomly pick from a fish bowl in my house before I realized that it would be easier to just skip to the ending, haha. I’ll still probably post eleven of these, and I do welcome prompts for the remaining months (up until November). 
> 
> This was supposed to go up before the end of January, but I had work to do and bills to pay, haha. It’s still a little rough—apologies for any typos that I may have missed. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> The prompt for this fic was “hangover.” It is the immediate aftermath of the scene that Rey overheard and recollected in _Reaching You_.

            “Well, you’re in a fantastic mood.”

 

            Kylo Ren slanted a look at his companion, his red-rimmed eyes narrowed both from pain and irritation. Perhaps the look was not as effective since he was on his stomach and half his face was buried in his pillows. Phasma merely lifted a blond brow at him, as unfazed by his scowl as she had been when they were children and she had towered over him by a good foot. Time had since narrowed the gap between them in size—though she still liked to rub in how she stood about half-an-inch taller than him—but it had not diminished Phasma’s complete lack of deference towards him.

 

            It was why she was perhaps the closest thing he had to having a best friend.

 

            Said best friend had barged into his room half an hour earlier with what she proclaimed to be the world’s most effective hangover cure, but after she’d force-fed him a mason-jar full of the sludge, Kylo was convinced that it was probably poison because his stomach was now roiling and his head was _still_ being rhythmically cleaved in two. If only the poison would make his death come quicker.

 

            Especially since Phasma was determined to chatter all throughout his suffering. He’d had to endure her endless narration of the training drills that she and her ROTC unit had gone through that morning, how she was going to improve on the program someday. Kylo had sullenly refused to say a word throughout, even if just to tell her to _shut up_ , and it seemed the silence had finally annoyed her enough to address him directly.

 

            “I hope last night’s overindulgence was worth it,” Phasma continued in that crisp, condescending and judgmental tone that only she and her cousin managed so well. “Armitage said you were so determined to get drunk that it was easier to just let you. Hardly becoming of the Supreme Leader’s ward.”

 

            “Armitage can go suck an egg,” Kylo muttered, not meaning it. Hux had, after all, dragged him back to his dormitory near dawn. He’d lectured and complained the whole time but, as with Phasma, Kylo had long become inured to Hux’s sneering and sharp tongue. What mattered was that when it counted, he came through.

 

            In another life, he’d probably have found it bizarre that the two peers Kylo considered closest to him were people whom he disliked. But as things were, having hateful people be his friends sounded about right. They were both slightly sadistic, fanatical perfectionists, but they had important places in his life.

 

            And at least they were honest about what they were. At least it was there, on the surface. They might abandon him, might turn on him someday, but he would see it coming and it wouldn’t be personal.

 

            And for the present, at least, they were there.

 

            Well, Phasma was, anyway. Against the dark décor of his room, she stood out like an icy moonbeam. Her close-cropped hair was the color of wheat in the wintry sunlight that she’d let in when she’d drawn his drapes and startled him out of his stupor. In her unabashedly feminine, blue cable-knit cashmere sweater dress and tall boots, she still managed to look more handsome than pretty, but there was something he found comforting in that stark, severe face. Perhaps it was that pair of canny, smoky blue eyes set against all that snowy skin—eyes that carried understanding, if not warmth or sympathy.

 

            It was why Kylo had far more tolerance for Phasma’s brand of playfully vicious teasing than Hux’s earnest, overweening nagging.

 

            “So what were we celebrating last night?” she asked in a deceptively brisk tone. “Another wonderful, productive chat with your adoptive papa?”

 

            Kylo couldn’t help the snort. If Snoke knew how Phasma spoke about him, she’d probably find herself in one of those holding cells that exiled left-wing radicals said the First Order kept. Unlike Hux, whose parents were important enough to be a part of Snoke’s inner circle, Phasma’s branch of the family tree tipped decidedly downwards. Also unlike Hux, who was almost insanely devoted to Snoke’s First Order Party, Phasma was far more practical than puritanical. If the First Order no longer served her or her family’s interests, she would likely turn.

 

            _To whom?_ piped the quiet voice that sounded too much like someone he’d left behind years before. _When Snoke’s time comes, what then?_

 

            Kylo forcefully shut that train of thought down, closing his eyes in the effort to do so. He couldn’t let himself think of that. Not when he already felt like he usually did whenever his guardian put him through meditation drills and therapy. Snoke had very unique ideas about what helped give a person mental and emotional clarity.

 

            “So not the Supreme Leader then,” Phasma concluded without surprise. Kylo glared at her, as ineffectual as he knew it would be in terms of making her stop. “I thought not. You usually look crippled or constipated after one of your chats, not . . . ” She trailed off, waving her hand with disgust in his general direction.

 

            Kylo didn’t take the bait. Phasma was fishing, and she would use anything he gave her to draw things out until she found something of interest to her. They stared at each other for a full minute until Phasma caved, rolling her eyes at him in irritation.

 

            “You do realize that if you tell me, I might actually be able to help you,” she pointed out in a voice she likely reserved for the poor sods she would train someday.

 

            That was highly unlikely. To Phasma’s credit, she had managed to do a great deal for him over the years. But as valuable as she was, he wasn’t about to go crying to her about girl problems.

 

            The fact that he was having honest-to-goodness problems with a girl made him cringe. Twice as hard because the phrase “girl problems” was something his father used whenever he’d had a fight with his mother and his son wanted to know why there was so much yelling and object-throwing. Still, there was no denying the accuracy of the term. He was having problems and they were being caused by a girl.

 

            Though Rey Kenobi had yet to yell at him or throw something in his direction, since the first moment he’d clapped eyes on her Kylo felt the way Han Solo looked whenever he looked at Leia Organa. Hungry, confused, tormented, resentful . . . not very romantic, but it spoke volumes of the power that a woman could have over a man.

 

            And despite doing his best to deny and minimize it, Kylo was too honest with himself to pretend that things were otherwise. As much as he hated her for it, there was no way to fool himself into believing that Rey didn’t have any power over him.

 

            After all, the day before had been wonderful and the night promising to be even more so. He’d had a lengthy, productive discussion with one of his tutors about his performance in the previous term, he’d won three bouts against Raynar Thul in his morning fencing class, and he’d been looking forward to an evening unwinding with his set.

 

            Then _she’d_ arrived and it had all gone to hell.

 

*

 

            Some genius had chosen just that moment to play something from Maroon 5, and as Adam Levine appealed for the pretty little girl to put her hands all over him Kylo leaned over the railing of the dais where he and his group had settled. The glass of Hibiki he’d tossed back upon arriving was still humming happily through his blood stream and he could feel the knots of tension along his spine dissolving as the raucous, carefree energy of the crowd sank into his system. He’d been hesitant to go to a party hosted by Gant Wesell, but half an hour in even Kylo had to concede that the heir to the Undercity’s Outlander Club knew how to throw a party. The cavernous entrance hall of the home he’d rented for the purpose had been converted into the dance floor where most of the people still were, but scattered around the three-floor building were pockets of activity: gambling, a pool game, and other kinds of recreation that Kylo was thinking about exploring. He was straightening, planning to excuse himself, when some newcomers skittered into view.

 

            Kylo’s breath clogged in his throat as she walked further into the glinting pool of the giant chandelier’s light. Just the sight of her made him think of sin. Of dark corners and soft sighs, of heat and violent relief. Every part of him seemed to ache—some more than others—and he fought the urge to tug at his collar and loosen other garments that suddenly felt too tight.

 

            To be fair to Rey Kenobi, she’d been having that effect on him for a while. He couldn’t exactly be pissed off with her, as if she’d deliberately dressed to seduce him. Objectively speaking, she was still mostly covered up in a little black dress that complemented rather than clung to her trim figure. Her hair was done up in an intricate-looking knot that seemed like just a version of her usual three buns and her face was as bare as it usually was save for the slight sheen on her lips.

 

            There was no reason to feel like she’d punched him in the gut.

 

            Maybe it was because she’d been wearing Poe Dameron’s jacket over the dress. Or maybe because Dameron and his floppy hair had helped her peel the hideous thing off, smiling lopsidedly down at her as she flashed him her dimples. Maybe it was because Dameron now had a hand on the small of her back, guiding her forward into the throng of people celebrating the opening of spring term.

 

            “What do you think, Ren?”

 

            Alli Starwind’s quiet inquiry cut neatly through Kylo’s fantasies about snapping Dameron’s fingers off. Turning his attention back to his friends, he realized with some chagrin that they were all staring at him, waiting expectantly for an answer. In the half-second before he opened his mouth, he took a quick inventory of their faces.

 

            Alli’s placid face was wreathed in discomfort, but the set of her jaw was firm and uncompromising. Facing her, Armitage Hux was looking particularly feral, his blue eyes bright with the kind of indignation unique to zealots. Frederic Kellar stood in between them, one large, pacifying hand on each of their shoulders. Given the discussion before he’d spotted Rey, Kylo could guess what the argument was about. 

 

            “Armed force will always be the last resort,” Kylo said slowly, gauging the expressions of his listeners. “But I’m sure that reasonable people will prevail before it comes to that. Malastare was an Empire state, after all.”

 

            Hux smirked; Alli pursed her lips and her expression cleared, though her eyes remained troubled. It was a curious thing, how an heiress from Kuat—the opulent port city that also served as the site for the country’s largest military shipbuilding operation—was always the first to oppose Hux whenever he started in on one of his autocratic rants about how to get people—and states—in line.

 

            Kellar grinned at Kylo in relief, sensing that the argument had—at least on the surface—been put to rest. Unlike Kylo, Hux, and Alli, Kellar was not reading for the Political and International Relations Program and didn’t enjoy debating systems of government or foreign policy. Like most Mandalorians, he had a straightforward approach to conflict: crush the opposition. If he wasn’t also dating Alli, Kellar would likely have been in complete agreement with Hux with respect to what people were calling the Malastare Crisis.

 

            Despite the numerous upheavals their country had faced, Malastare had always known its place since the days of the Old Republic. It weathered regime change better than most states and since the First Order had taken power it had developed at an unprecedented rate. Yet peace and prosperity aside, something had changed in resource-rich Malastare over time, because it was now threatening to secede and take a valuable chunk of the country’s economy with it.

 

            Privately, Kylo could see where Alli was coming from. The Malastare Crisis was complicated. On one hand, the fact that Malastare was daring Snoke’s wrath by championing secession was a sign of vulnerability in the First Order’s hold—vulnerability that needed to be coped with by a show of strength. On the other hand, the First Order as a party was already controversial. The United Nations seemed to be forever adopting resolutions decrying Snoke’s policies and methods and some states had already seen fit to impose trade sanctions. They didn’t need Malastare to serve as another example of brutal authoritarianism.

 

            “Oy, Dameron!”

 

            Kylo’s attention snapped back to the party at Kellar’s boisterous greeting. He turned in the direction of the hulking Mandalorian’s grin and found himself less than ten feet away from Rey and her group.

 

            If he’d felt overwhelmed with her across the sea of bodies, having her walk within arm’s reach was so, _so_ much worse. Especially since Rey didn’t look too happy to see him either, her gaze flying everywhere but at him as her friends forced her to shuffle forward. Kylo noted that she and Dameron had managed to locate the other pairing in their crew—the boy who’d been expelled from the Imperial Academy and the cute engineering student who was always with him.

 

            And the fact that he could actually conceive of Rey and Dameron as a pair made him clench his teeth so hard he was surprised they didn’t crack. He nodded coolly at the group in general, pointedly tearing his gaze away from Rey.

 

            “Dameron,” Hux drawled unpleasantly, cutting in right after Kellar introduced Dameron to Alli. “And . . . what was your name again? We had Dameron with us for at least two years, but you left us so suddenly just a few months in.”

 

            As far as taunts went, it wasn’t Hux’s most creative, but on his intended target it was supremely effective.

 

            “His name is Finn,” Dameron said tightly, his eyes narrowing with the same brash temper from their middle school days. “For someone so supposedly smart, you sure do have trouble with names, Hux.”

 

            “You do need to remember, he’s smart by Imperial Academy standards,” Finn added with less heat. This one was clearly the more level-headed of the two—and clearly used to dealing with potshots about his expulsion. Kylo almost found the quip funny, except _he’d_ come in first at the Imperial Academy.

 

            Hux colored but his lips curled in some form of acknowledgment. “Well, we can’t all be so clever so as to be sent down on purpose, Finn. Interesting to see you here. Aeronautics, too?” Something ugly found its way into his eyes. “You and Dameron were always too _chummy_ , even back then.”

 

            “Military History,” Finn supplied readily, the veiled jeer sliding right off him. The corner of his mouth quirked. “With your cousin, as it happens.”

 

            “Phasma?” Hux blinked, then grinned. “I’ll be sure to put a word in about you.”

 

            Finn grinned back, his teeth just as sharp. “Oh, no need. We already had a long chat about you and why _she’s_ the one in the Military History Program.”

 

            This time Kylo did smile—to himself, at least. He swept Hux a covert look and saw that the barb had found its mark. As fond as Hux was of his cousin, he’d grown up on taunts about his so-called “deficiencies” as a male, about how Phasma and he were clearly meant to be living each other’s lives rather than their own. They were stupid, ignorant notions about what made a man, of course, but knowing things didn’t make things hurt less. Kylo was well-versed in _that_ particularly frustrating reality.

 

            Despite their argument earlier, it was Alli who swept into the fray in a transparent effort to give Hux time to rally his defenses.

 

            “Fred, will you and Armitage see if you can get us more drinks?” she asked Kellar sweetly. To Hux—who did _not_ appreciate being ordered around, whatever her motives—she added, “Please go with him Armitage, he never knows what to order. We’ll end up with something horrendously pedestrian if you don’t.”

 

            Predictably, the appeal to his elitism swayed him and Hux grudgingly departed, shooting Dameron and Finn another slit-eyed stare.

 

            Alli turned back to the group, the grin she was wearing relaxing her serenely beautiful face into something appealingly approachable. “Very nice to meet you, Finn,” she said sincerely, taking Finn’s hand in both of her own before turning to the girl at Finn’s side. “And you’re Rose Tico, right? I think we had a math class together last term.”

 

            “Art,” Rose Tico corrected, smiling back. “You painted that abstract piece that made me think of a swan.”

 

            “You took an art class?”

 

            The surprised interjection seemed to thrum over his ears, sending a shiver of delight down his spine. Steeling himself against the feeling, Kylo did his best not to look like a moonstruck cow as he finally allowed himself to look at her again.

 

            The scene between Hux and their former schoolmates had helped him pretend that Rey wasn’t there. Now that she’d inserted herself neatly into the middle of the conversation, there was no helping it.

 

            It was small comfort that she looked mortified at drawing attention to herself, her smooth cheeks flushing becomingly. He lowered his gaze to her shoes, his mouth going dry as he fantasized about tasting her freckles, only to find that he was as fascinated by the wickedly sharp pumps she had on. It was pathetic, how he wanted her to walk all over him with those heels.

 

            “Not everyone lives and breathes engineering, Rey,” Rose was saying with a fond roll of her eyes.

 

            Rey flushed, her retort defensive. “I just forgot to sign up for electives!”

 

            “You must really enjoy engineering if it absorbs you that much.” Alli was chuckling in that smooth, practiced way that his mother used to whenever he’d seen her at work. It was the kind of laugh to set someone at ease, and it worked like a charm on Rey, who turned those big pools of golden green to Alli with something akin to helpless adoration. “It’s nice to meet you, Rey . . . ?”

 

            “Kenobi,” Rey breathed out, reaching for Alli’s hand eagerly.

 

            And damn it all if he wasn’t jealous of Alli.

 

            _Alli._

 

            _Get a grip,_ Kylo told himself fiercely, disgusted beyond belief. _She has yet to say a word to you and you’ve already lost the plot._

 

            Alli had turned her attention to Rose, her eyes twinkling. “I wouldn’t mock her—you drew a _vector_ for your final project, as I recall.”

 

            “Is _that_ what that was?” Finn asked, piling on.

 

            Rose turned to swat at him, and suddenly the conversation was between Finn, Rose, Alli, and Poe, who had once again stepped in to defend his friend, this time from a mildly irate engineering student/frustrated artist.

 

            Rey must have felt the shift, too, because she stiffened under the weight of Kylo’s stare, her posture straightening so quickly that her back almost arched. He waited a beat before he realized that she wasn’t about to acknowledge him.

 

            “Kenobi,” he greeted softly, forcing the issue though it stung his pride to do so. There was simply no way to help himself when it came to her. He’d have stonily ignored anyone else.

 

            She lost the battle to politeness as he knew she would and she finally turned to face him. All of the warmth that had been on her face just a few moments earlier had drained away. Her lips tautened at the corners in a perfunctorily civil smile. “Ren.”

 

            Kylo cast about for something to say, floundering as her eyes drew him in. When she averted her gaze, her color peeking through the thin veil of her makeup, he choked out the first complete sentence in his head, something akin to terror gripping him as it occurred to him that she might leave their conversation at that.

 

            “Did you have a good holiday?”

 

            He instantly resented the way she blinked up at him as though, in asking the question, he’d sprouted another head. It was a perfectly polite, sensible question.

 

            “Yes,” she answered slowly, as if she didn’t understand what he was asking. Then, like it was being dragged out of her—“You?”

 

            “It was fine.”

 

            It was. It had been. He’d spent the first three days giving a full report to Snoke about his first term, then the Supreme Leader had left him to his own devices after dispensing some advice. There was no reason to feel hollow and ridiculously ashamed in giving his response to her question.

 

            Rey looked at her preoccupied friends, then out across the dance floor, clearly wishing that she was anywhere but _right there._ Perversely, it crossed Kylo’s mind to ask her to dance when someone else caught his eye.

 

            The open bar was adjacent to the entrance, built up against a wall in a way that made it look like it had always been there. He spotted Hux and Kellar waiting for their drinks, their eyes roving the dance floor much like his own had been when he’d simply been passing the time.

 

            Except that Hux’s eyes weren’t roving—they were fixed on Rey’s face, the cold blue orbs alive with interest, darting over her with appreciation that was apparent despite the sneer that Kylo still managed to see from where he was standing.

 

            “Will you excuse me?” Kylo murmured to Rey, taking one last glance at that delicately-molded face, that slick mouth. “I just remembered that I have to deal with something.”

 

            He strode off without waiting for her response, ignoring the curious interjections from his party as he left. By the time he reached Hux, he’d managed to get a tight enough grip on the possessive fury that he didn’t punch Hux immediately in the face. Instead he laid a hand on the other man’s shoulder, managed to say with enough gravity that they needed to discuss something urgent _right away_.

 

            Hux’s chest puffed with ambitious pride and he preened, shooting Kellar a blatantly insincere, condescending apology. Kellar wasn’t happy with being left alone to carry all the drinks back, but Kylo helpfully divested him of two and walked away with Hux in tow.

 

            It took them about ten minutes to find a quiet reading room on the second floor, where Kylo managed to convince Hux that he’d just needed an excuse to get away from the corroding presence of the plebeian Poe and Finn.

 

            “Well, I don’t blame you,” Hux said with a smirk. “God, what is happening to the application process at this school? Dameron I can try to understand, but _Finn?”_

 

            They spent a good twenty minutes ridiculing their former schoolmates and finishing their drinks. Hux had settled on vieux carré for the group—perhaps out of deference to Alli, who favored it. Kylo didn’t usually like mixed drinks, but there was whiskey in the thing, at least, and he was coming to like the bitters. Halfway through his glass, Kylo almost forgot why he’d been so determined to get Hux away from Rey.

 

            And then Hux opened his mouth and demanded to know if there was anyone worth knowing at the party.

 

            Kylo smirked, not seeing what was coming although he should have. “You know everyone worth knowing already. It’s almost like they crowded Imperial Academy alumni all into one block.”

 

            Hux laughed, nodding. In that single row of student housing, there were over ten Imperial Academy schoolmates in the freshman year alone. Kylo could see Hux ticking off the people who’d shared time with them—transferees and expelled students not excepted, it seemed, from the way Hux’s lip curled. Then his expression became arrested, and Kylo saw the exact moment when he remembered that it hadn’t just been Poe and Finn who’d joined their group earlier.

 

            “It wasn’t a schoolmate I saw earlier today and wanted to get to know better,” Hux continued, apparently not spotting the look on Kylo’s face yet. “You greeted her earlier . . . Kennedy, was it, that Kellar said her name was? . . . pretty brunette with hazel eyes and a sexy little black dress?”

 

            Kylo took a slow, deep breath, a little over half a decade with Snoke helping him marshal his considerable discipline.

 

            “Kenobi,” he corrected softly. He forced himself to smile, a parody of the sneer that was almost perpetually on Hux’s face. “Believe me, you’re better off not knowing her. She’s nothing—nobody.”

 

            Hux’s brows shot up, but it seemed he was taking Kylo at his word. “Too bad,” he said with a mild sniff. “You can’t have everything—or so they say. Look at Starwind. Pretty, important, but possessed with the most idiotic ideas I’ve ever heard in my life.”

 

            This time Kylo’s smile was genuine, and he let Hux see it and all the mockery it contained. After all, Hux was largely oblivious to mockery when he was on the subject of Alli Starwind. For someone who repeatedly concluded that Alli was too stubbornly dense to understand how _wrong_ she was, Hux spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get her to change her mind. And thinking about ways to get her to change her mind. And talking to other people about how to get her to change her mind.

 

            He settled into the antique wingback he was occupying, finding his center as Hux droned on across from him. In view of Hux’s obsession with Alli, Kylo surmised that he had probably overreacted to Hux’s interest in Rey. Especially since what he knew about Rey told him that she would _never_ have any interest in Hux. It had been a purely instinctive move, lashing out to defend his territory, and in hindsight it wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done.

 

            He’d left Rey’s side.

 

            Left her in the company of Poe Dameron and his stupid hair.

 

            Kylo downed the rest of his drink as something akin to panic licked at his insides. Logically, he knew there was no way he could stop them from being together. They’d arrived together, after all. They would probably leave together. They lived in the same dormitory as him. There was no reason to feel terrified that they might go off somewhere and . . .

 

            “What’s the matter?” Hux demanded when he finally realized that Kylo had not said anything in the last five minutes.

 

            Kylo shrugged. “Nothing,” he said evenly, staring at his empty glass. “I just want a refill.”

 

*

 

            He wasn’t a happy, pleasant drunk, but at least Kylo had stopped caring for a few hours about what Rey was doing with Poe Dameron. Phasma’s wondering tone cut into his thoughts, through the pain and the haze of memories about what had followed that exchange with Hux.

 

            “I thought Armitage was exaggerating, as usual, but . . . this wouldn’t happen to be about one Miss Rey Kenobi, would it?”

 

            It wasn’t often that Ren gave her _that_ specific look, but whenever he did it had the proper effect. Phasma’s voice trailed off as she assessed her friend with the clear, sharp eyes of someone who’d known him for a long time—and someone who wasn’t also suffering from a massive hangover. The blazing warning she’d read in Ren’s dark eyes was only prompted by specific things: talk of his parents, people and places from his old life.

 

            Things that were too close to his heart.

 

            Which, apparently, this Rey Kenobi was.

 

            Despite appearances, Phasma did have a measure of empathy. It wasn’t much compared to most people’s, but it was there. So she held her peace for a few minutes more, considering how to approach him.

 

            Armitage had come home at almost 4:00 a.m., too keyed up to go straight to sleep despite the exhaustion that was written all over his unkempt clothing and drawn face. He had plunked down across from Phasma and unceremoniously helped himself to half her breakfast, too preoccupied with ranting about Ren’s bizarre mood swings and poor impulse control to complain about her cooking. The notion that Ren would go and get himself absolutely, shit-faced drunk was so intriguing that Phasma had rushed to check on him. She’d originally come to gawk, laugh, and gloat, but now that she’d had a look at him and the state he was in . . .

 

            Something Armitage had said halfway through her cheese-and-egg bagel stuck out to her the way it would only for a woman.

 

*

 

            “ _Six_ bottles, Phasma, _six.”_ Armitage took another bite, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

            Phasma lifted her brows, gripping her coffee mug tightly and taking a deep sip. Usually she wouldn’t worry about her cousin taking her coffee—he abhorred the sugary, instant white coffee she’d discovered in Singapore—but he also usually hated her cheesy egg bagels, and yet here he was distractedly mowing one down. Suddenly Phasma regretted not attending Gant’s party—she could only imagine what Ren must have been like to get Armitage _this_ agitated.

 

            He swallowed with some effort after only a few chews. “One minute we’re having a laugh over those nitwits, Finn and Dameron, and the next he’s upset with me for misremembering the name of this little nobody I found pretty.”

 

            “You found a girl you liked?” Phasma said with a sharp bark of laughter.

 

            Armitage gave her a beady-eyed stare. “I said _‘found pretty_. _’_ Honestly, I barely noticed her when they first came up to us because I was too busy putting Finn and Dameron in their place. And next to Starwind, well . . . “

 

            Phasma bit back the snicker, knowing it would distract Armitage from his story if she needled him about his hopeless, disgruntled infatuation with Alli Starwind. She couldn’t help the laughter in her eyes, though, and she quickly lowered her gaze to the table when Armitage managed to rouse himself from the Alli Starwind rabbit hole that his mind had gone down.

 

            “I only got a really good look at her when I was at the bar,” Armitage continued with great dignity, “while Kellar and I were waiting for our drinks. She and Ren barely said two words to one another and then Ren left her standing there, like they’d had a row. I asked him about her later because I wanted to know what they’d said to one another to get him to look like _that—_ when he was coming towards me he looked _furious_ —but then he all but bit my head off because her last name is ‘Kenobi’, not ‘Kennedy.’ Honestly, Phasma, who cares what she’s called if you think she’s nothing to you?”

 

*

 

            It was a fair point and the obvious answer was that the girl was clear not _nothing_ to Ren _._ Aloud, Phasma had murmured something noncommittal, but the name Rey Kenobi had lit up a corner of her mind, conjuring a memory of a unique hairstyle and an impish grin lighting up a round, freckled face. It was difficult to forget Rey when she came to see Finn so often.

 

            The way Ren had reacted when she’d brought up Rey was all it took for the kernel of intrigue in Phasma’s mind to blossom into a healthy weed. As cute as Phasma grudgingly considered Rey and Finn to be when they were around one another, the notion of Rey and _Kylo_ was so delicious that she could feel herself going up a dress size from just contemplating it.

 

            The satisfied, sinister smirk on Phasma’s mouth sent a trill of dread down Kylo’s spine.

 

            She _knew._

 

            He didn’t know why yet or what for, but Kylo was going to _kill_ Hux.

 

            As his mind scrambled to recall how he might have given himself away when he was plastered, Phasma moved in for the kill.

 

            “Such a pretty girl, but too . . . _fresh_ , too unspoiled.” Phasma gave him a vaguely patronizing look. “I suppose that may be something new for you, but she’s not the sort of girl that you should trifle around with for sport, you know.”

 

            “It’s _nothing_ , Phas,” Kylo snapped, rising to the bait before he could stop himself, wincing both at his lack of control and the way his temples throbbed in response to the force of his denial.

 

            “Oh good,” Phasma replied smoothly, “because I was about to add that you shouldn’t get too attached to her anyway. I saw her on the training field this morning talking to Jagged Fel.”

 

            _“What?”_

 

            There was no way Kylo would have been able to contain that one, snarled word. Not Jagged Fucking Fel. Suddenly the smooth-talking bastard with his floppy hair and lopsided grin, whom Kylo had spent the previous night cursing to perdition, was insignificant.

 

            “Oh I didn’t mention that before, did I?” Phasma went on, obviously relishing his fury. “Jagged Fel stopped by training today. Apparently he’s on leave and decided to stop by to see some old friends and check on the training program. Not as tall as he should be, for my taste, but _my,_ that _face,_ with that _scar_ . . . ”

 

            “Get out,” Kylo snapped at last, unable to bear any more, his head spinning from the implications of what she had just taunted him with.

 

            Phasma ignored him. “Oh _that’s right._ Armitage did mention that you two were at school together, though Jag was some years older. What was it like to be in school with someone like _that?”_

 

            Kylo hauled himself out of bed, oblivious to Phasma’s snort of distaste as she took in his undressed state and the way he lurched across the room. He needed a shower, some coffee, and a handful of painkillers. And then he was going to go find Rey.

 

            _And do what?_ came that same, infuriatingly calm voice in his head. The voice of reason that had saved him countless times over the years, as much as he hated the person to whom it belonged.

 

            As he had the night before, Kylo didn’t give the voice an answer.

 

            He didn’t have one.

 

*

 

            Perhaps Phasma had been feeling her version of remorse, because when Kylo walked out of the shower in a marginally better frame of mind and steadier feet she had some painkillers and information.

 

            “Rey has a class in the Arts and Letters building at 3:00,” she supplied before he could say something vicious to her. She was reading from her phone. When she looked up, however, there was still only condescending amusement on her face, not any form of apology. “I’ll let you get dressed. Get some visine into those eyes, all right?”

 

            She exited hastily after, laughing as she dodged a jar of expensive pomade, a stream of obscene words floating on her heels.

 

            Ten minutes later, was still laughing when she received Ren’s imperious text message.

 

*

 

            “Hello, Kenobi.”

 

            Rey froze up, her shoulders squaring in a classically defensive posture. Her face tilted to the side so that she could cast a look in his vague direction before nodding sharply.

 

            She wasn’t ready to face him yet.

 

            It was too soon.

 

            She’d taken tea bags and half-frozen spoons to her eyes just that morning so that they de-puffed and calmed down.

 

            So that no one would know how much she’d cried over how Kylo Ren had belittled her.

 

            Rey had yet to understand why his disdain had hurt _that_ much, but she didn’t need to understand. What mattered was that she knew where she stood with him, and she convinced herself to be grateful for the fact. As . . . unpleasant as it was—yes, _unpleasant_ was all it was—to be looked down upon with derision, that derision was illuminating, at least.

 

            Prior to last night, she’d entertained the deluded notion that the prickle over her skin and knot in her stomach she felt whenever she saw him was awareness. There was definitely _something_ hovering in the air between them whenever they were around each other.

 

            Now she knew it was scorn.

 

            So Rey kept walking, her chin up and jaw tight, when before she might have been inclined to stay and make an attempt at exchanging pleasantries. She was _done_ with that _._ Whenever she thought about how she’d lingered in painful awkwardness the night before, trying to come up with something witty or appealing to say to charm something other than a frown out of him, she wanted to roll herself in honey and throw herself on top of a fire ant hill.

 

            She felt herself flash hot and cold when she realized that he was walking with her, his much longer legs helping him keep pace with her easily.

 

            “What are you doing?” Rey demanded waspishly, too overcome by the sight of him to pretend indifference, as she’d planned when she’d put herself back together that morning.

 

            He looked paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes and lines of tension around his mouth. Despite the obvious signs of fatigue, he seemed infuriatingly _radiant_ to her, his tall frame encased in a luxurious wool coat the color of charcoal and dark indigo trousers. The touches of dishevelment—the unfolded end of his white shirt collar, the tousled wave of his hair that suggested he’d been raking his hands through it—helped to soften him somewhat, made the imposing whole of him more human and approachable.

 

            “Going to class,” Kylo answered softly, something inside him settling when she finally looked at him.

 

            Her decidedly cool greeting had sent his already temperamental stomach plummeting, but he wasn’t about to slink off and make it easy for her. Sometime throughout the shower, painkillers, and coffee, he’d resolved that if he didn’t have a shot with Rey, he wasn’t about to get out of the way for Poe Dumbass Dameron or Jagged Fucking Fel.

 

            Or anyone, really.

 

            She could go on disliking him, but she wasn’t about to shake him.

 

            God, even when Rey was pissed off she was beautiful. It had been a struggle to nonchalantly walk up behind her when he’d wanted to run and scoop her up in his arms. She was dressed with customary simplicity in worn jeans and a baggy ivory sweater, a worn, dangerously overstuffed backpack hanging from one shoulder. It was a novel feeling, wanting to both undress a woman and dress her up properly.

 

            As she glared up at him, Kylo noted that Rey looked tired, the signs of strain in the tender skin beneath her eyes and the notch between her brows. He didn’t want to think about why Rey was tired, so he lost himself in the way her eyes flashed at him, green and gold, the vivid wash of color across her cheeks. She glanced at the building they were approaching, her expression turning incredulous.

 

            “I didn’t know you took art classes, Ren,” she spat out, like it was an indictment.

 

            “Only when I remember to sign up for electives,” Kylo quipped, absorbing the disproportionate delight he felt when the statement appeared to confuse rather than irritate her.

 

            She turned her face away just as they reached the arching entrance of the Arts and Letters building, a graceful, neoclassical limestone masterpiece that Kylo took to admiring whenever he went running through campus. Nestled in front of the campus’ prettiest park, it formed the front side of the Liberal Arts Quad.

 

            Kylo followed Rey with ease, keeping his face expressionless despite the urge to smile. The surreptitious—or attempting to be surreptitious—looks she was shooting him with every hall they turned and floor they walked up to were becoming increasingly bewildered.

 

            Now that he thought about it, Kylo had no idea what class he had gotten Phasma to sign him up for. He’d gotten several calls from his tutors that he had yet to take or return, suggesting that whatever it was, it was _definitely not_ a recommended part of his program. As they passed several classrooms and he caught snatches of conversation from the students milling about, he felt himself begin to sweat.

 

            Jesus, what if they were doing something like contemporary art or poetry reading?

 

            “What room are you anyway?”

 

            It wasn’t the question that Rey wanted to ask, but she’d thankfully decided against the incredulous, “Are you walking me to my classroom?” at the last minute. He’d managed to crush her self-esteem already—she doubted she had the capacity to withstand another assault less than twenty-four hours later.

 

            “503,” came Ren’s succinct reply.

 

            Rey’s jaw dropped open. “With _me?”_

 

            This time she’d been too slow to stop her stupid, unfiltered mouth. One of Ren’s brows arched. “As I am right now, you mean? Probably, though I imagine there will be a number of others. Other students, the professor.”

 

            Kylo had meant to be teasing, to try and set her at ease in the face of her suspicion and disbelief. Instead her mouth snapped shut and her enticing blush became mottled with fury.

 

            “That’s not what I meant, you asshole,” she hissed. And on that lowering note, she spun on her heel and marched off.

 

            This time Kylo let her leave without him, smarting and trying to process just how he’d manage to blow that. He’d always been accused of having a smart mouth, though he usually had better control over it. His humor was rare and usually too dry for most people, though the few who knew him well could at least tell when he was joking.

 

            Why had he thought Rey would know that he was trying to be charming?

 

            He took a deep breath and let it out, forced himself to calm down. It had been a tactical error, but it wasn’t critical.

 

            _Things are only over when you quit._

 

            Kylo was so buoyed by the thought that it wasn’t until much later, when he was alone in his room and falling into his dreams that he realized that the words had come to him in Han Solo’s voice.

 

            So it was with a considerably lighter heart and a steadier stomach that Kylo walked into Room 503. They were pretty early—the ancient professor was apparently napping and students were still finding their seats. Rey was seated at a table with a free seat, hunched over and avoiding eye contact, her tatty backpack pointedly taking up space on the seat next to her.

 

            He wasn’t about to tempt fate by approaching her again so soon after what had happened, so he took a seat several rows behind her, getting a clear view of her tense profile, the graceful slope of her short little neck.

 

            Obscenely, he found himself wondering what it would be like to taste her there, to mark her so that when she wore her hair like that people would know. It gave him a measure of comfort that her skin was smooth and unmarked—he’d probably been giving Poe and Fel and other bastards he didn’t know about too much credit.

 

            The loud scrape of a chair drew Kylo’s attention to the front of the room, where the professor had apparently awoken from his nap and unfolded from his seat. He was surprisingly tall when not hunched over in slumber, and spectrally thin, the illusion of unnatural proportions emphasized by the high-collared black robe he wore. A few wisps of snow-white hair hung from his ears, his pinched face giving the impression of a perpetual squint.

 

            Yet despite his decrepit appearance, the voice that boomed out of the old man was enough to fill the room, its warm tones at odds with his somewhat sinister appearance.

 

            “I am Professor Allium and welcome to Creative Writing 110,” he intoned with a smile that managed to be terrifying despite its obvious geniality. He turned and began to scrape out the course description on the board.

 

_Filling the Blank Page: Get Started in Fiction Writing._

 

            Static filled Kylo’s brain for a full minute as he tried to understand what exactly that meant.

 

            In her seat, Rey turned away, fighting the urge to laugh at the look on Ren’s stupid, gorgeous, hateful face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have always had a thing for Jagged Fel. I mean, seriously, his name is Jagged. Fel. How hot is that, in and of its own? 
> 
> Until next time! (Which will probably be sometime this February.)


	2. The Sun King (February)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey has a date with learning that Kylo Ren, for some kriffing reason, has decided to crash.
> 
> _He was walking towards her._
> 
>  
> 
> _In the long minute it took for the thought to sink in, Rey only managed to stare stupidly at him. Later, it would occur to her that she could have dismissed him and simply buried her nose in her book. After all, they weren’t friends—they weren’t even friendly acquaintances after the events of the last month. She had no real obligation to do anything other than acknowledge him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you so much for your kind response to the first chapter! I can’t describe the little kick it gives me every time someone gives my work a kudos or leaves me a comment. 
> 
> Before we get on with it, I must apologize for my tendency to write lengthy chapters. I’ve tried to shorten them, but I seem to write chapters as the equivalent of forty-five minute episodes—there’ll be a cliffhanger now and then, but mostly there are beginnings and endings in each. Besides, since these are written for each month, they should probably be denser. Finally, since I don’t update as often as I would like, I figure longer chapters can make up for that. 
> 
> The prompt for this was “Louis XIV” for some reason. I have no idea what that name/prompt was doing in my fish bowl. Anyway, that’s enough blabbing from me. Apologies for any typos I may have missed during editing. On to the story!

            Rey straightened in her seat, irritation oozing from every pore as the sound of tittering filled the air. Looking over her shoulder, she caught the source of the offending sound in the middle of being devoured by her boyfriend—and still managing to giggle like a moron in spite of having a tongue shoved down her throat.

 

            _You’re just bitter, Kenobi_ , a dry voice commented as the death-stares she shot the couple bounced uselessly off of them.

 

            If Rey didn’t have bone-deep issues with authority, she might have hailed the ancient librarian sitting at the end of the room, apparently oblivious to the lewd mauling that was taking place not ten yards in front of her.

 

            To be fair to the motherly old Lula Arthos, she was nicer than most librarians in Rey’s experience . . . though as she thought of it, she realized with some embarrassment that her experience didn’t really count for much. She had never really been one to spend time in a library—though her college’s library made her inclined to change that.

 

            While small in comparison to other libraries around campus, it was incredibly homey: all polished antique rosewood and warm light, landscape art of rolling hills and comfy upholstery the color of champagne. For the first time in her life, Rey understood why people needed to find the right kind of place to read.

 

            As picturesque as it was, however, a library was decidedly _not_ the most romantic place to spend Valentine’s Day, indecent bookworms aside. Indeed, the only reason Rey had decided to spend that evening in the library was because she was sure that it was the only place—other than the sad confines of her room—that she might escape canoodling couples.

 

            Besides, the night was horrible already—she may as well use it to try and get something useful done. So she’d lugged herself to the library, determined to _finally_ get started on the work for the writing class she’d been floundering at for weeks now.

 

            Why she had ever thought that she could _write_ —when she didn’t really enjoy _reading_ , if she was honest—she would never know.

 

            One thing that helped was that Professor Allium was genuinely interested in helping spark some degree of creativity in even his most stumped students—and Rey was definitely that. Her first writing assignment had come back with a depressingly small note about seeing the Professor after class. She’d half expected him to rip her submission in half before her eyes, but instead he’d given her perhaps the best instruction she’d ever received at university.

 

*

 

_Professor Allium’s office was a tidy, airy room that still managed to have a whiff of mustiness—probably from the books that were almost everywhere Rey looked. Seated behind his spindly old desk, her spindly old professor was skimming her writing assignment. Rey’s fingers were knotted anxiously in her lap until he set her work down and smiled._

_“Your grammar is excellent,” he said with a gentleness that Rey appreciated, “and you have a knack for writing completely and concisely—which is perfect for your actual academic track. The only real issue is that there’s no imagination in your work yet. You set the scene beautifully, but in terms of plot nothing really happened.”_

_Rey considered what he said, weighed the defensive nonsense she wanted to lob at him—“Oh, that’s because it’s meant to be Chapter 1 of a longer work, Sir”—and went for the truth, even if it meant being vulnerable._

_Professor Allium listened carefully to her halting explanation, interrupting only to ask a few questions that had her looping to other tangents. When she finished, the expression on his wizened face was thoughtful._

_“Miss Kenobi, how much do you know about creative non-fiction?”_

*

  
            It had taken her about forty-five minutes to decide which book to read. There were titles from the same author that seemed heftier somehow, more substantial—less like a trashy romance novel. But kriff it, it was Valentine’s Day and she was alone and no one was going to see her reading it anyway.

 

            More importantly, if Professor Allium was wrong about this reference material being able to help her, at least she’d have had a relatively good time.

 

            _It’s just a grade, Rey,_ a small part of herself pointed out. _For an elective. You don’t need to be perfect at it._

 

            It was true, but it wasn’t in Rey’s nature to simply accept that she wasn’t good at something. She had the kind of stubbornness that helped people stay alive out in Jakku, and it came to her aid now as she attempted to be a better writer.

 

            And she didn’t want to be perfect, anyway.

 

            She just wanted to better than _Kylo Ren._

 

            The other thing that helped was to know that Ren wasn’t faring any better. Rey grinned, relishing the memory of Ren standing awkwardly outside the Professor’s door when she stepped out, obviously waiting for his turn for consultation. She’d turned her face sharply away when he’d greeted her, nodding stiffly before leaving as quickly as she could.

 

            She couldn’t exactly laugh in his face when she was also struggling.

 

            Objectively, Rey knew it probably wasn’t healthy to fixate so much on Kylo Ren, but her anger towards him _did_ help her focus. And besides, how was she supposed to stop thinking about him when people around her kept bringing him up?

 

*

 

_“What do you think?” Rose asked, doing a slow twirl._

_“Very cute,” Rey replied emphatically. She grinned at her roommate, who pinkened becomingly before spritzing a cloud of perfume in the air in front of her and walking through._

_Despite the fact that watching Rose get ready for a date while she ate her pizza alone in her pajamas made a tiny part of Rey’s heart twinge, she hadn’t been able to look away since Rose started. It felt like joining a secret club, being a girl—the skincare, the makeup, the perfume, the painstakingly put together outfits. Usually she and Rose got ready together—except Rey didn’t have a date for that evening. As lowering as the feeling of being dateless was, she found that it didn’t diminish her enjoyment of watching her friend gussy up._

_“Sure you don’t want to come with me?” Rose asked again, rummaging through her purse. “Jim did say that one of his friends asked about you. I’m sure he could call that guy.”_

_Rey wrinkled her nose and laughed to soften her refusal. The senior that Rose had started dating two weeks before had the reputation of being a horn dog, so there was no way that a friend of his would pique Rey’s interest. Under ordinary circumstances, Rey would have said something about Rose’s decision to get involved with the likes of Jim Krik, but after what had happened with Finn, Rey knew to keep her mouth shut._

_“Come_ on _, Rey,” Rose wheedled teasingly. “Even that emo asshole Kylo Ren has a date tonight.”_

_The breath seemed to leave Rey’s lungs and her heart stuttered. She sniffed disdainfully and turned her nose up in the air. “Probably some poor, desperate girl who thought she couldn’t do better. No thank you, Rose, but I won’t make the same mistake.”_

*

 

            Mercifully, Rose had left it at that and had gone on her date, leaving Rey to stew until she’d shifted gears and decided to work on her writing class. It was probably the best decision Rey had made that day.

 

            She’d ace her next damn assignment. She’d gotten a headstart, hadn’t she? While Ren was off cozying up to his latest floozy, she was getting some serious work done. Rey stared determinedly at the page she was on, to prove it.  

 

            It wasn’t sad at all.

 

            _God, I hate Rose._

The unbidden, resentful thought crawled up from the cracks over her heart and Rey squashed it down with indignant loyalty to her friend. Rose hadn’t meant anything by it—she’d just been trying to make a point at the expense of Kylo Ren. There was no reason to be upset with her.

 

            It wasn’t Rose’s fault that Rey didn’t have a date.

 

            It wasn’t Rose’s fault that the universe was vastly unfair and that someone as horrible as Kylo Ren _did._

 

            Rey scrubbed her hands over her face, willing her shoulders to relax. There would be no point to pulling herself out of the comforts of her room—and away from her remaining pizza—if she was just going to sulk here. She had come to the library to read, so that was what she should do. Not waste her time thinking about Kylo Ren.

 

            Especially since, as she discovered when she lowered her hands and opened her eyes, thinking about the devil seemed to summon him.

 

            For the second time that night, Rey’s heart stopped for one painful, crucial second.

 

            He was dressed in a crisp suit and silky shirt the color of midnight, a black overcoat slung over one arm while his free hand tugged at his sharply contrasting crimson tie. Despite her animosity, she could admit to herself that Kylo Ren looked good in a suit. Rey couldn’t help admire the cut of the expensive-looking cloth, the way it made him look both sleek and powerful as he ambled casually towards her.

 

            _Wait. What?_

 

            He was walking towards her.

 

            In the long minute it took for the thought to sink in, Rey only managed to stare stupidly at him. Later, it would occur to her that she could have dismissed him and simply buried her nose in her book. After all, they weren’t friends—they weren’t even friendly acquaintances after the events of the last month. She had no real obligation to do anything other than acknowledge him.

 

            He came to a stop beside her chair, his long legs a few inches from her arm. His face was expressionless, his fathomless eyes taking her in and taking her apart with a familiar scrutiny that made her bristle.

 

            “What are you reading?”

 

            Rey hated the way his deep, softly-spoken question made a shiver race down her spine and goosebumps crawl over her skin. It was enough to snap her out of her stupor.

 

            “Something for class,” she answered coldly, snapping the book shut and covering it with one of her arms.

 

            She nearly jumped out of her seat when Kylo bent over her, his body caging her in against the chair and the table as he pulled the book from beneath her arm. Rey barely managed to stop herself from snatching it back, realizing she would look doubly ridiculous if she let him see how embarrassed she was. He straightened, relieving her of the inexplicable pressure she felt at his nearness—then shocked her all over again by moving to the side and settling in the seat next to her.

 

            “ ‘The Life and Loves of the Sun King’,” he read aloud, recalling her to her mortification. He flipped the book so that he could see the author’s description on the back. “By Sir Anthony Frasier.”

 

            “Professor Allium said I should see how he writes if I wanted to look more deeply into the narrative style,” Rey interjected defensively, before he could say anything more. “Some of the most compelling non-fiction works read like fiction, and Professor Allium said that Anthony Frasier manages that really well. I can’t just make things up, so I thought I would borrow from history maybe—since truth is stranger than fiction anyway—and I figured I could just write about someone historical and give it enough of a spin to make it sound like fiction.”

 

            Later that night, when she would replay that particular segment of the evening, Rey would spend hours screaming into her pillow about exactly how unhinged and disjointed she sounded and how she had actually said “someone historical” to Kylo Kriffing Ren, who already thought she was lower than the dirt beneath his expensive leather shoes.

 

            _I hate you,_ was all she managed to think just then, however. She hated how flustered he managed to make her feel, how judged and belittled. She hated how he had barged into her quiet evening and made her feel embarrassed of a book that, just a few minutes before, she had been thoroughly enjoying.

 

            It didn’t help that he was staring at her with the kind of fascination that scientists reserved for deviant lab rats.

 

            _Ass._

 

            “Well,” Kylo said at length, consumed by the adorable picture of her going pink with embarrassment. He wanted to cover her blushing face in kisses—and the mortifying notion of himself behaving towards her as a puppy would towards its master helped him to refrain from acting on the compulsion. “I haven’t read this book yet, but I did enjoy his ‘Cromwell’ and ‘The Warrior Queens.’”

 

            “Oh.”

 

            Rey blinked, her fury thoroughly doused by surprise. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been _that._ She watched dumbly as he began to leaf through the book, settling more comfortably in his seat like he meant to do some actual reading. She was so surprised that she didn’t notice how she’d turned towards him.

 

            “What are you even doing here?” she blurted out in her confusion, her flush returning when she realized exactly how rude she sounded.

 

            _I don’t care_ , she thought fiercely, latching on to her temper as soon as she felt the sliver of guilt creep into her heart. _He’s a terrible person and I don’t need to be nice to him._

 

            “Trying to see if this is as good as Frasier’s other books,” Kylo said calmly.

 

            “Why aren’t you out on your date?” Rey demanded, then literally bit down on her tongue when she realized exactly what _that_ sounded like. The self-inflicted pain managed to shock her into having a little more control, and she continued with a cooler, if more sullen tone. “It’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?”

 

            Kylo raised a brow, but instead of pointing out that _she_ wasn’t out on a date on Valentine’s Day, as she thought the bastard would, he answered simply and—apparently—honestly.

 

            “I was, earlier, but I was bored. It turns out, unless you’re actually in love, bowing to the commercialism of the occasion is no real fun.”

 

            It would take Rey months to properly process his answer for all the conflicting feelings it elicited. First came the unaccountably wild burst of joy, then the tinge of disappointment and sadness, of wanting to recoil from his cynicism, then confusion. The joy she didn’t want to examine and the negative feelings she understood well enough, so she focused instead on the confusion.

 

            “What do you mean ‘commercialism’?”

 

            The look he gave her was a patent blend of well-mannered contempt and condescension that never failed to make her want to throw an egg at his face.

 

            “This entire holiday was invented by greeting card companies hundreds of years ago,” Kylo explained with some amusement. “They even used to call the cards sent ‘valentines’ even though any connection with Saint Valentine is unsupported by solid historical evidence. In fact, they probably invented a religious feast to supersede a pagan festival of fertility that used to happen around the same time each year.”

 

            He really did find the notion amusing—how faiths co-opted the occasions of their less “holy” counterparts—but Rey, apparently, did not. She stared at him with rank antagonism, like the historical tidbit offended her even though she had clearly decided to forego celebrating the stupid occasion, too.

 

            “I feel sorry for your date,” she said sharply. “And you said _you_ were bored.”

 

            It was a lie, of course, but it would take Rey months to admit it even to herself. The truth was she was jealous—of Ren’s date, for having been asked out, _and_ of Ren, for knowing so much and caring so little about an occasion that apparently meant something to her only because she was a lonely, ignorant loser.

 

            The insult had given Ren pause, his face going blank so she couldn’t tell if it had really hurt him as she’d hoped, but in a few seconds it became clear that he wasn’t ready to leave the conversation—or the argument.

 

            “My point is,” he said slowly, enunciating each word like a patient teacher instructing a remarkably stupid pupil, “this occasion marks spending to celebrate romantic love.”

 

            Rey snorted derisively. “It’s not like _you_ have to worry about money.”

 

            Ren didn’t bat an eye, apparently unwilling to be sidetracked by her remark. His dark eyes held her own with an intensity that made Rey’s throat go dry as he leaned over and into her space.

 

            “No, but there are better, more direct ways of expressing how you feel.”

 

            Rey’s blood roared in her ears as the implication of what he meant hit her. There was no way to miss it, not when he was giving her the kind of speaking look that men gave women in those movies that featured empire-cut gowns and sweeping music attending every interaction.

 

            _Don’t flatter yourself, Rey,_ a cool voice said calmly. _He’s speaking in general, not in reference to you. Have you forgotten already what he thinks of you?_

            How could she ever forget? She had thought of it every time she’d seen him in the last five weeks, which had resulted in her inevitably trying to avoid him or cutting him dead if she was forced to engage.

 

            But it was hard to focus on the hurt when he looked like that—his mouth almost soft, his sloe-eyed gaze reflective. Even as she tried to dig deep for the resentment, it evaded her. Instinctively realizing what was holding her in thrall, she tore her gaze away and shifted so that he had to converse with her profile and a good deal of her shoulder.  

 

            “Now I don’t know if I feel sorry for your date or for you,” she said thickly, like her tongue had swollen to twice its size. “So are you telling me that you tried to express yourself directly and she was more interested in the commercialism of the occasion?”

 

            If Kylo was honest, it had been technically the other way around. Vexa Kaiser had been upfront about the kind of connection she wanted with him from the moment she’d cornered him in a classroom and bluntly asked him on a date. It had been Kylo who had caved to the notion of a “proper Valentine’s Day”, though he could always blame Phasma and Alli for that.

 

*

 

 _“You_ must _bring flowers, Kylo,” Alli said with the touch of imperiousness that only surfaced whenever she was trying to educate him about social niceties. They were seated in one of the quieter cafés in the old university town, warming up with tea and dainty sandwiches and pastries that made Kylo feel like a giant. He usually didn’t mind going along with Alli’s afternoon ritual when they finished their Historiography class, but they’d run into Phasma on their way out of their college and the first thing she’d done was ask Kylo if he was really going on a date with “that harlot from Cato Neimoidia.”_

 

_As a result, Kylo had been forced to endure a good twenty minutes of Alli’s admonitions about his lack of preparation for the blessed event. It apparently didn’t matter that, as Kylo had pointed out repeatedly, he wasn’t really interested in making a lasting connection with Vexa and had only said yes to the dinner because it was something to do on a Tuesday night. Unfortunately, Alli didn’t seem to appreciate where he was coming from. She was still on the matter of Kylo’s non-existent Valentine’s Day tributes. “Chocolates, too. You can’t go on a date with a girl on Valentine’s Day and not bring anything.”_

_Phasma looked up from her phone to show him her smirk but wisely didn’t comment. Kylo glared at her, but she had already returned her attention to her screen, and he was left to fend off Alli on his own._

 

_“She just asked me to dinner,” Kylo said tersely. “The day itself has no real significance.”_

_“To you, maybe,” Alli countered stubbornly. “But to all girls, going to dinner with a boy on Valentine’s day_ means something. _Right, Phas?”_

_Kylo lost his temper before Phasma could open her mouth and gleefully heap onto his misery. Clanking his teacup and saucer down onto the table with a rattle, he snapped, “Is this what you do when you’re single? Plan other people’s Valentine’s dates?”_

 

_It was a petty, callous remark, and Kylo felt instantly ashamed when Alli’s face went white. She and Kellar had gone separate ways only weeks before, and while it hadn’t been a deep and abiding love, it hadn’t been casual. She lifted her chin with great dignity and answered him steadily._

_“Yes. It’s a way of knowing happiness vicariously.” She dabbed carefully at her mouth and turned to Phasma. “Please excuse me for a moment.”_

_She rose and it didn’t matter where she was going, because Kylo knew she was leaving to compose herself. He didn’t really have friends—even Phasma and Hux were friends only in the most distorted sense—but Alli was one of the rare people whom he actually liked, and he had attacked her out of frustration. He didn’t feel guilt often, but he recognized it in the pressure over his chest, the compulsion to jump to his feet and apologize._

 

 _“_ Sooo _,” Phasma said slowly, watching Alli’s retreating form, “flowers and chocolates by six p.m.? Your date is at seven, right?”_

_“Just don’t get anything ridiculous,” Kylo muttered grudgingly._

*

 

            Of course, that remark only meant that Phasma—the bitch—had brought him a stupidly big bouquet of pink roses and saccharinely sweet pink candy hearts because “they were out of chocolates.” Not that it mattered since, as much as Vexa had cooed over the flowers, she’d flatly refused the candy because she couldn’t have sugar.

 

            “Are you diabetic?” Kylo had asked with a tiny bit of chagrin. He hadn’t really wanted to bring her sweets, but he hadn’t expected her to refuse them either.

 

            “Oh no, it’s just that I’m on this really fantastic diet.”

 

            And somehow, it had all gone downhill from there. The restaurant that Alli had recommended was appropriately romantic, with a string quartet and excellent steak—which Vexa _didn’t_ have—but if not for the music and the food, Kylo might have happily given up an arm to be anywhere else. He’d tried to focus on Vexa’s many charms, on her big blue eyes and fiery red hair, the deep cleavage she was treating him to in her tight black dress, but the technical appreciation of her beauty had brought him no delight.

 

            Apparently, what appealed to him was dark hair pulled up in three separate buns, a wealth of freckles, and a slim, toned body bundled up in shapeless grey leisure wear.

 

            It spoke to the depth of his dilemma that the best he had felt that entire day had been the moment he’d spotted Rey Kenobi through the window as he’d walked back to his college after politely ending his uninspired evening with Vexa. Some other time, he might have been content just to watch her as she studied, but it was a rare occasion to find Rey alone.

 

            And here she was, alone on _Valentine’s Day._

 

            Not off on some date with some faceless man whom Kylo hated, even in theory.

 

            His feet had already been moving when he decided that she deserved _some_ company on account of the occasion.

 

            “Wow, _that_ bad, huh?”

 

            Apparently he’d considered his answer for too long. That worked in his favor, though, because Rey was now looking at him again, her eyes wide with curiosity and bright with a glimmer of empathy. It was the most friendly she’d looked all night.

 

            “It wasn’t going to work out, whatever each of us was there for,” Ren replied obliquely. He shifted and began rummaging in his coat pocket, extracting a filmy pink pouch that looked so ludicrously out of place on Ren’s person that Rey’s mouth twitched despite herself. “But to demonstrate my point, look at these.”

 

            And he dumped the contents of the pouch into his palm.

 

            Rey stared at the sweets in his hand—small, heart-shaped candies with various inscriptions. Her mouth water instantly and her stomach rumbled—though _why_ she couldn’t imagine, considering how much pizza she had eaten. She clapped her hands hastily over her belly, shooting Ren an apprehensive glance.

 

            “Ten whole credits for a single pack of these,” Ren said with disgust, thankfully so engrossed in his treatise against Valentine’s Day commercialism that he apparently didn’t hear the weird sound emanating from behind Rey’s belly button. “Can you imagine?”

 

            “You can afford it,” Rey pointed out again with renewed heat, irritated at him and irritated at herself for disliking how he kept bagging on Valentine’s Day. Hadn’t she been doing the same thing just before he’d arrived? “Besides, they’re very tasty-looking.”

 

            “And in that regard, they don’t disappoint—thank God.” He unwrapped one and popped it into his mouth. “I still wouldn’t pay ten credits for a pack of candy, but at least these taste good.”

 

            “Why did you buy those then?”

 

            Kylo barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “I didn’t. Phasma did because she thought I should have something for my date.”

 

            “That was sweet of her,” Rey said a little wistfully. “To think of your date, I mean.”

 

            Rey was a little terrified of Phasma—it was hard not to be, considering her weirdly vicious and simultaneously amiable relationship with Finn—but the notion of her being so considerate of another woman made Rey want to hug her.

 

            “She was just going off something Alli said,” Kylo clarified dismissively. The truth was, the candy was probably on account of Phasma inexplicable dislike for Vexa (hence, unrepentantly unhealthy candy over something like dark chocolate) and her delight in making Kylo squirm (hence mortifyingly pink candy hearts with tooth-rotting clichés scrawled on them). “About all girls wanting sweets on Valentine’s Day.”

 

            She didn’t know what made her say it—it just slipped out before Rey could stop herself.

 

            The truth tended to do that.

 

            “Well, she was right about that.”

 

            “No, as a matter of fact, she wasn’t,” Kylo said with a snort, recalling how Vexa had _literally_ stepped back from the candy when he’d offered it to her. Then he looked at Rey and he forgot all about his irritation with Phasma and Alli and over the time he’d wasted with Vexa Kaiser.

 

            It was something about the way she lowered her eyes, the way her mouth pursed a little as a series of emotions flitted across her face. Kylo lifted his hand towards her, watched as her eyes fell on the little hearts.

 

            “Take one.”

 

            Rey flushed, realizing what she must have sounded like. She turned away from him again. “No. Those were for your date.”

 

            “Who doesn’t like sweets,” Kylo informed her helpfully. When he saw that she wasn’t going to take one from his hand, he dropped the candies onto the table and pushed the small pile towards her. Firmly, he tried again. “Have one.”

 

            “I don’t like sweets, either,” Rey lied baldly, shooting him a withering glance that she hoped would shut him down.  

 

            Ren gave her a judgmental look that, despite her shields, still managed to make her feel like a slug. “I’ve seen you scarf down a stack of pancakes marinated in half a jug of syrup. _Have one.”_

 

            “ _No!”_

 

            _“Shhh!”_

 

            _Seriously, you old bat?_ Despite her irritation, Rey ducked her head under the sharp admonition. She remembered then where she was, what she was supposed to be doing before Ren had barged bizarrely into her evening.

_“Go away,”_ she hissed furiously at him. “Go kriffing bother someone else if you’re bored, Ren.”

 

            “All right,” Ren said coolly, raising his hands up in mocking surrender. His expression was closed off, but distaste glimmered in his eyes.  “There’s no need to be hysterical. I’ll leave you alone to read about other people’s love lives, Kenobi.”

 

            _Asshole!_

 

            The thought exploded in Rey’s mind in time to the hurt. She opened her mouth to give Ren a piece of her mind, but he stood with a loud scrape of his chair that somehow managed to _not_ elicit a second scolding. Without sparing her a second glance, he swept the candies into one palm, slid her book over to her, and walked off. Rey watched him go, feeling absurdly like the loser in that fight as his broad-shouldered form disappeared through one of the arching doorways behind the librarian’s desk. Her eyes seemed to burn as she watched him go.

 

            Some low whispering caught her attention and Rey’s head whipped around towards the couple from earlier, who were both staring at her like she’d kicked a puppy in front of them.

 

            _“What?”_ she snapped rudely, hating them for staring and for judging what they obviously didn’t understand.

 

            “ _Shhh!”_

 

            Rey bit down on an aggravated snarl, turning in her seat and gathering her things. She’d borrow the stupid book and read in her room. That way she didn’t have to sit through gross public displays of affection, unfair reprimands from biased librarians, and pointless interruptions from jerks who existed only to rile her.

 

            As she picked up the book she meant to borrow, something clattered down onto the table.

 

            She froze when she realized what it was.

 

            Had Ren forgotten one? Or had he put it there when he’d shoved the book at her?

 

            Rey stared blankly at the little candy heart, at the tiny gold inscription. She picked it up, squinting at the flowing script.

 

            _You are sweet._

 

            Except she hadn’t been. She’d sniped at Ren since the moment he’d arrived, when all he’d done had been to engage her in conversation. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t even know what he had been in the library for. Perhaps her unpleasantness had scared him off and he would come back for it another time.

 

            She wanted to grind the stupid heart into dust. It would be so easy to drop it onto the floor and plant her heel on it. It would be as if Ren hadn’t forgotten it. And if he _had_ left it behind on purpose, destroying it would be one final refusal.

 

            Even if it did make her feel like a churl.

 

            _You are sweet._

 

            Impulsively, Rey unwrapped the candy heart and popped it into her mouth, the taste of berry and milk and honey colliding and leaving with a slight tang.

 

            For some reason, the taste also made her eyes sting. She swiped at them hastily and looked around, terror at being observed fading into dull disappointment and guilt.

 

            She needn’t have bothered.

 

            Ren was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone spot the _Anne of Green Gables_ reference? Hahaha, I couldn’t resist. Anne and Gilbert are #RelationshipGoals.
> 
> Vexa Kaiser and Lula Arthos are OCs. “Sir Anthony Frasier” is really Lady Antonia Frasier and I recommend all her books, especially _Love and Louis XIV_ , which I refer to in this chapter. Also, I really did write it as “Jim Krik” because I don’t want _that_ reference to be too obvious, haha. 
> 
> I hope everyone had a great February! Until March!


	3. After-Party (March)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have.”
> 
> _Ren’s voice was soft in an odd way . . . odd because it didn’t get her hackles up for once. “Where are you going?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Home,” Rey said, waving her hand determinedly. That had to be a cab—it was bright yellow with black stripes and everything._
> 
>  
> 
> _“Alone?”_
> 
>  
> 
> _She looked at him, the offer popping out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Unless you want to come along?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the prompt for this was, “Whatever you’re listening to.” And I just happened to be listening to Taylor Swift’s “Gorgeous.” I think I managed to make it work with the eventual conclusion of this—but let me know!

            “Are you nervous?”

 

            Rey grinned at Rose’s question, slanting her friend a sideways look. “Are _you?”_

 

            “I have no idea why I’m nervous!” Rose exclaimed, laughing at her own outburst in the next breath. “We’ve done spring formal before, haven’t we?”

 

            “In high school, sure,” Rey replied, rolling her shoulders to try and ease the tension. She’d wondered earlier if acknowledging her nerves would help ease them.

 

            Well, apparently not.

 

            “It’s two hours, Rose. I’m sure we can white-knuckle it until the after-party.” She gave Rose another once-over, her grin turning admiring. “I really do love that dress on you, by the way.”

 

            It was a pretty satin pink cut in a bustier style that Rey had managed to find when they’d been trolling through one of Paige’s favorite vintage shops. Tragically, it hadn’t fit, but it was one of the joys of vintage shopping—a new discovery for Rey—that there was always heaps more to be found. It wasn’t that far from scavenging, really, except you got to wear what you dug out.

 

            “Thanks!” Rose beamed, playing with the voluminous skirt. She returned the compliment by eyeing Rey critically. “You know, when Paige fished that out for you, I thought she was _crazy._ But you really do look amazing in it!”

 

            Rey flushed, her hands moving over the embellished front of her dress. “You don’t think it’s too much, do you?”

 

             Rose shook her head earnestly, wondering at how Rey couldn’t see what was so clear to almost everyone else. Rey probably wasn’t the most obviously beautiful girl at the university, but there was something distinctly appealing about her that went far beyond her good looks. She didn’t have the curves that might have made the pale gold halter-strap dress seductive, but Rose saw now what her sister had seen in it: that Rey absolutely loved it.

 

            And because she did, she just _glowed_ , her energy infectious despite both their apprehensions. She skipped down the steps to where their dates for the evening were waiting, heedless of the limitations of the heels that Paige had loaned her. Rose sighed with exasperation and a smidgen of envy— _of course_ Rey would also manage to share Paige’s tiny, dainty feet.

 

            “Peanut!” Finn greeted with a surprised laugh. “Is that really you?”

 

            Rey stuck her tongue out at him, then cackled with wild delight when he lifted her arm above her head and twirled her around. She landed in a heap in his arms, still giggling when he planted a smacking kiss on her cheek.

 

            “Oh, I can tell you’re going to be a handful tonight,” Finn remarked, his dark eyes twinkling. He looked up as Rose reached the bottom of the stairs, his face softening even though his smile was still teasing. “You sure you still haven’t forgiven me enough to be my date instead?”

 

            Rose smirked at him. “I’m fine with it, but your new boyfriend might mind.”

 

            Poe—who had been standing back, grinning like a fool at Finn and Rey’s antics—turned to give Rose a chiding glance. “I’m not the one who had trouble sharing, Rose. In fact—” he leaned over her, waggling his eyebrows as he leered at her—“I was _very much_ looking forward to plucking Finn’s little Rosebud— _ow!”_

 

            He jerked back, managing to laugh even as he pulled his injured foot out from under Rose’s heel. Rose was blushing, her porcelain skin tinged with a gorgeous pink, her narrowed eyes belying the laughter fighting to escape from her lips.

 

            “Come on,” she ordered brusquely. “I don’t want to be late to this thing.”

 

*

 

            As far as end-of-the-term dinners went, even Kylo had to admit that the Royal Academy’s Feast of St. Arcaina was spectacular. Their college’s formal banquet hall, which could easily sit five hundred people, had been done up for the occasion with scarlet banners and a veritable ton of spring flowers. Dozens of glittering chandeliers cast a golden glow over the assemblage—most of whom were still milling around greeting one another as they located their seats.

 

            Kylo knew that the program would be fairly simple: a few words from the college dean, some reminders for the course work that would still be expected during the term break, and then dinner would be served. There would be five courses and then a formal end, after which the students would be free to go their own ways.

 

            He was looking forward to what would come after—though he still hadn’t made up his mind about what exactly it would be for him.

 

            On one hand, the after-party was going to be held at First Dawn. When he had first come across it, Kylo had sneered at the uninspired reference to its mother establishment, the Lastdark Club in Corellia. After his first visit, however, he’d decided he could forgive the name when the club itself was such a sublime experience.

 

            On the other hand . . . Kylo gave his date a measured look. Tahiri Veila was a wonder of golden curls and bright green eyes, small and shapely and an absolute killer in her black dress. He hadn’t known her long, but he wasn’t regretting the decision to ask her to be his date. She was sharp but deferential and their understanding was mercifully uncomplicated.

 

            Unfortunately, his date didn’t catch the meaningful look he was casting her way. She was deeply engrossed in yet another back and forth between Hux and Alli.

 

            “The methods you favor only foment dissent,” Alli was saying in the kind of steely, recalcitrant tone that never failed to push Hux’s authoritarian buttons. She’d settled in between Tahiri and Phasma, but Hux had picked his seat so that he sat directly across her and he had begun the evening by demonstrating that his voice could carry across the expanse of their round table. Thankfully, Alli could manage the same without shouting and banging her fist on the table for emphasis. “Everyone was saying that the Malastare Crisis would be resolved within a week of the military moving in. That hasn’t exactly happened, has it? If anything, it’s made their government cling tighter to their secessionist views and their people are standing by them.”

 

            “First of all,” Hux shot back heatedly, “we only arrived at this point because _your_ namby-pamby ideas on coddling seditionists are what made them dare to attempt secession. If we’ve learned anything in the few decades, it’s that any spark of rebellion needs to be snuffed out if we’re ever to have order.”

 

            “You sound like my grandparents when they talk about the Empire.” Alli’s voice was as cutting and cold as a shard of glass. “And yet that’s exactly why the Empire fell, isn’t it? You and your First Order haven’t learned a thing.”

 

            An unnatural hush fell over the table. No one talked about Snoke’s First Order that way—not publicly, anyway. Not to tables occupied by fanatics like Hux or wards of the Supreme Leader.

 

            Kylo straightened in his seat, his eyes skittering over the faces of those present, taking inventory of who would need to be dealt with. Tahiri looked up into his impassive face, clearly waiting for him to react and content to follow his lead. Erinn Lefex—Hux’s date, whom he’d ignored since the minute he’d sat down—seemed horrified. But then she’d looked that way since Hux had started picking a fight with Alli, who was perfectly docile towards most people. Hux had gone white with apparent shock and Kylo could imagine how many neurons were misfiring inside his brain if he had yet to respond. In contrast, Alli looked perfectly composed, though she was still in her defiance, staring him down. Kylo looked past her to Phasma, who dipped her head into a barely perceptible nod.

 

            “Now see here,” Hux began at length, his voice shaking like Alli had said something that had cut him to the bone, “what you just said borders on _treason_ —”

 

            Alli was so caught up in winning the argument that for the first time since Kylo had known her, she interrupted who she was arguing with. “Treason can only be committed during times of war, specifically when you wage war on your own—”

 

            “Treason means—”

 

            “God, are we really going to debate the meaning of treason _here?_ Can’t you save some of it for class?” Phasma complained loudly, giving her cousin an aggravated glare. When Hux opened his mouth to likely berate her, she shifted her gaze to Alli, her smile all sharp teeth. “I really must apologize for him, Starwind, but we both know that no party is complete for him if it doesn’t involve an argument with you.”

 

            Hux sputtered, coloring furiously, but Alli only tilted her head and frowned in confusion. In any event, the interruption served its purpose: calling attention the squabble made it impossible for them to continue—not without making it more painfully awkward. Taking Phasma’s cue, Alli cleared her throat and changed the subject.

 

            “Since they haven’t served the alcohol yet, I wouldn’t call it a party,” she said lightly. She gave Phasma a sheepish grin. “I should have listened to you about pre-gaming.”

 

            Phasma laughed, throwing her arm companionably around Alli’s shoulders, and Kylo smothered a snicker at the way even that made Hux seethe.

 

*

 

            Rey trailed after her friends as they searched for their designated table. She was doing her best not to look _too_ awed by the splendor around her, but it was hard going when everything was so unapologetically magnificent. She bumped into a few people as she craned her neck up to stare at the gorgeous ceiling and spun around trying to admire what everyone was wearing, but no one really seemed to mind—everything was _that_ gobsmacking that even the snobs couldn’t pretend nonchalance.

 

            Finn’s voice was distant, but distinct. “I think our table’s over there, Peanut. Come on.”

 

            Rey hurried to keep up, smiling and acknowledging the people she knew as she passed. There was really something magical about special occasions. Rey didn’t like to bring it up often, even with her friends, because it invariably made them look at her pityingly, but Rey found a distinct, novel pleasure in having to dress up and mingle. Even people she didn’t particularly like or know well suddenly seemed friendlier and more approachable, and as she passed several tables with acquaintances who smiled and waved, she looked forward to discovering who she would be getting to know better that night.

 

            “Oh, no _fucking_ way.”

 

            Rey stopped behind Poe, confused and a little distressed by his aggravated exclamation. Finn lay a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, his face and his voice calm even though he shot Rey a meaningful look that she couldn’t interpret.

 

            “Come on,” Finn said firmly, his forced smile doing nothing for Rey’s nerves. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

 

            Because she had absolutely no idea what was going on, Rey followed his lead, pasting a bright smile on her face just as Poe stepped forward and out of her way.

 

            And just like that, she found herself smiling straight at Kylo Ren.

 

*

 

            It should have been a recipe for disaster, crowding them all together in one table and cutting off any escape.

 

            Except it wasn’t.

 

            Phasma waved Finn over excitedly, grinning from ear to ear. She was dressed in a stunning ice blue gown that emphasized her height. While friendly but more reserved towards Rose and Poe, she surprised Rey by bussing her on the cheek. Rey flushed with pleasure at the unexpectedly warm welcome, then completely lost her composure when Alli Starwind got up to greet her. She’d been fangirling over Alli since they’d first met, but she hadn’t had many opportunities to spend time with her in the weeks since.

 

            “You look incredible, Rey,” said the vision in the dark floral dress, her gray eyes filled with appreciation. “The dress suits you.”

 

            And somehow, that sweet, simple compliment was enough to sustain Rey. It kept the smile on her face as she was formally introduced to Phasma’s cousin, Armitage Hux, who managed to both leer at her while looking down his nose at her. The smile held as she was introduced to Kylo Ren’s date and met the cool assessment in Tahiri Veila’s eyes.

 

            Rey even found it in herself to greet Ren and continue to smile even though he only nodded and looked right through her.

 

            Yet it was decidedly harder to feel buoyant when Finn took his seat next to Phasma and Rey took her own next to him. She wasn’t particularly averse to that seat, but it did put her directly across Ren, and Rey found herself struggling keep her eyes off him.

 

            It was only that it had been a while since she’d been in such close proximity to him. Ever since their argument in the library, it felt like he had made a pointed effort to make himself scarce—which Rey appreciated, of course. She’d told him to _go away,_ after all. The man knew how to listen, at least.

 

            Why his compliance irritated her, she had yet to understand. Perhaps it was because it was one thing to be respectful and give her space, and it was another to pretend like she didn’t exist.

 

            He didn’t even look at her in class or so much as acknowledge her when they happened to have consultations with Professor Allium.

 

            It was just plain rude, was what it was, and it was unwarranted behavior from someone who was in the wrong in terms of their relationship.

 

            _Acquaintanceship_ , she corrected herself mentally. _In terms of our acquaintanceship._

 

            Determined not to let him poison her evening, Rey looked to her right to listen to Poe, who was attempting to have a civil conversation with Hux. Rose had wisely seated herself between the two former schoolmates and it was likely out of consideration to her that Poe was making such an effort.

 

            “So how long until dinner?” Poe asked, fiddling with the program that had been laid in front of his place. “Because if I’m honest, we only came for the food.” He slanted Rey a teasing look and winked.

 

            “I have no doubt of that,” Hux answered in a lowering tone that Rey was coming to think was his default tone of voice, because there was no real heat in his eyes—just unabashed judgment and naked scorn. “Dinner should be in fifteen minutes, if they start the program on time.”

 

            “You wouldn’t happen to know the menu, would you?” Rose asked in an overly serious way that told people who knew her that she was joking.

 

            Fortunately for Hux and Rey—and unfortunately for the rest of them—Hux _didn’t_ know Rose, and so he answered honestly, treating them all to a thoroughly pretentious recitation of the gastronomic delights that the college had in store for them.

 

            “Is he really going to explain the difference between _amuse bouche_ and _amuse gueule?”_ Finn whispered loudly in the middle of Hux’s discussion on appetizers.

 

            “Oh hush,” Rey admonished, quite caught up in Hux’s thesis on fresh buratta and truffled honey with figs. “I’m _learning.”_

 

*

 

            If it was possible to make a production out of finishing his soup course, Kylo managed it. Keeping his attention on his food was not only an efficient way to eat, it also kept his eyes off of Rey—who was the _last_ person he needed to see tonight.

 

            A dark part of him wondered if she was doing it on purpose—crashing into his life and sending his insides into disarray whenever the thought that he had things under control occurred to him.

 

            He’d been doing very well at keeping her at arm’s length. It had seemed impossible, at first, but after reminding himself several times of how it felt to have her forcefully rebuff him, keeping his distance had become easier.

 

            It wasn’t fair that she made it a point to slink into his circle when he finally felt that he had gotten a handle on his former obsession. Especially since she was clearly there just to gall him. She hadn’t said a word to him since sitting down. She’d prattled to Hux, Lefex, and Alli about the food, weighed in on Dameron and Tico’s discussion on craft-to-craft communication developments in aerospace engineering, and even expressed interest in whatever bizarre new fitness regimen Finn and Phasma were debating.

 

            Interestingly enough, however, she had yet to speak to Tahiri. Goaded by some perverse intuition, Kylo turned his full attention to his date.

 

            “You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Kylo remarked, noting how diligently Tahiri applied herself to her food. Either she was determined to mirror him for the night, or she was simply a good eater.

 

            “The soup’s good,” Tahiri said by way of answer, rolling her spoon in the tomato bisque. “There’s a taste that I can’t pick out though.”

 

            “Fennel,” Kylo provided helpfully, forcing himself to focus on her when his eyes wanted to dart across the table. On her full breasts and long legs, the slickness of her mouth. “Or is it the caramelized apple?”

 

            “Probably the fennel,” Tahiri concluded, taking another spoonful. She grinned artlessly at him. “I _do_ know what apple tastes like.”

 

            “Sorry,” Kylo said at once, abashed even as an answering grin tugged at his own mouth. “It’s just that you never know with desert-dwellers.”

 

            Tahiri laughed, slapping her hand against his arm in mock outrage. “Exactly how many desert-dwellers do you know, Kylo?”

 

            Phasma’s smooth purr was like the sound of a gun cocking.

 

            “Well, Rey here’s a desert-dweller, too. Aren’t you, Rey?”

 

*

 

            Rey choked on her soup, eyes watering. She’d just been mulling over whose conversation to join next when Ren had leaned over to his date. His low-pitched voice had carried over the table, but it was clearly meant to be intimate conversation—and suddenly it had seemed like a good idea for Rey to go back to finishing her lovely soup.

 

            Now everyone—including Ren and his sooty-lashed date—was looking at her expectantly.  

 

            “Yes,” she managed to get out, reaching for her water as Finn patted her gently on the back.

 

            “Where are you from?” Tahiri asked politely. She still didn’t seem friendly to Rey, but there was genuine interest in her eyes.

 

            “Jakku,” Rey said a little stiffly, straightening in her seat as she braced for the inevitable judgment.

 

            Tahiri’s head tilted to the side consideringly. “I’m from Tatooine. We’ve both come a long way, haven’t we?”

 

            Rey found herself smiling at the frank understanding in Tahiri’s eyes. She opened her mouth to answer, but Ren’s cool voice beat her to it.

 

            “You’re not doing your home state a kindness by comparing it to a junk heap,” Ren said idly, his eyes on Tahiri.

 

            Tahiri wrinkled her nose at him impishly. “Jakku was at least a pretty place once,” she pointed out, taking the words from Rey’s mouth. “Tatooine’s always been what it is.”

 

            Rey snapped her mouth shut, turning her gaze back to her cooling soup. It was her home state being insulted—and her indirectly, she was willing to bet—but what was the point in jumping in? Clearly, her views on the matter were irrelevant.

 

            She took another spoonful of her soup and wondered why it suddenly tasted sour.

 

*

 

            “Will we be going to the after-party?” Tahiri asked in a low voice as she leaned over to spoon up more of Kylo’s wild berry parfait. Kylo had been content to watch her, deciding that a big appetite was something he definitely liked in a woman. At her question he raised his brows, making her smirk. Unfazed, she lifted one of her own. “Well, _will we?”_

 

            “Would you rather we skip it?” he asked bluntly.

 

            She grinned, her eyes traveling up and down his body before she met his gaze. “Normally I’d say yes right away, but it’s not every night that I get access to an exclusive club. If you can wait, so can I.”

 

            The tragic thing was, he could. He could wait until the next day even, or maybe up to the weekend. As much as he found himself genuinely appreciating her, Kylo wasn’t excited about the notion of taking Tahiri somewhere else for something else.

 

            And because he had an idea as to why she was suddenly unappealing to him in that way, Kylo took Tahiri’s hand with determination and impulsively brushed his lips over her knuckles.

 

            “One hour,” he told her decisively, trying to smile with what he hoped was assurance. “Just so you can see the club.”

 

            Tahiri had started at the show of affection, but she didn’t pull away and something flickered in her eyes before she smiled back with a sweetness that made Kylo feel like a complete bastard.

 

            Hux’s annoyed, annoying voice broke the moment.

 

            “Would you two stop that?” he demanded irritably. “You _can_ do that elsewhere.”

 

            “Oh hush, Armitage, I think it’s sweet,” Phasma said silkily. “And you’ll be missing that tameness when you see them mauling one another at the after-party later.”

 

            Kylo narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t believe you’ve ever been present at my maulings, Phas,” he pointed out coolly.

 

            Phasma shrugged, undaunted. “I’ve never seen you get shit-faced, either, but what happened at Gant’s party?”

 

            _Evil bitch_ , Kylo thought darkly, resisting the urge to hurl his utensils at her. He shook his head, opening his mouth to change the subject, but it had apparently piqued the attention of everyone else at the table.

 

            “The one when term opened?” Alli asked, her brows furrowing.

 

            “Yes,” Hux piled on with an accompanying eyeroll. “It was quite a trial.”

 

            “No one asked you to stay,” Kylo snapped unwisely, ready to throttle the next person who kept this particular conversational ball rolling.

 

            “Well that explains why two of you went missing that night!” Alli said brightly. Kylo might have kissed her with gratitude if she didn’t then turn her face to Rey, who was staring at him with rapt fascination that made him want to lash out. “I never got to ask—whatever happened to _you_ , Rey?”

 

            “Oh!” Rey jumped a little, her sudden flush blooming from her neck up to her face. “I . . . I felt unwell and rushed home.”

 

            To Kylo’s irritation, something that felt very much like delighted relief jumped through him at her revelation. Of course, Phasma ruined it for him the very second after by elbowing Finn and stage-whispering: “And you thought she’d been cornered by Kylo!”

 

            Finn laughed, waving his hands up in a literal expression of what he said in response. “Whoa, all I said was that I was worried that she might have been cornered by some weirdo!”

 

            “Oh, _lies_ , you said they were weirdly chummy at the party and then they both disappeared.”

 

            “We talked for under a minute,” Rey admonished Finn sternly, though her hand crept over his arm. Then her lashes fluttered and she was looking at Kylo with a hint of a smile. “Right, Ren?”

 

            “As it happens,” Kylo found himself saying, “I have no memory of speaking with you that night. Our conversation must have been exceedingly unremarkable.”

 

*

 

            “Oh, _thank God,”_ Rey said with feeling as Finn handed her a tall glass of amber liquid with a lime wedged onto the rim. She took an eager sip and sighed as warmth rushed through her in time to the drink sliding over her tongue. “What is this?”

 

            “It’s called a ‘Dark and Stormy’,” the waitress replied with a toothy grin and a sideways glance at Poe. “Your friend said it would match your mood.”

 

            Rey narrowed her eyes at Poe, who waved his hands up defensively in front of him.

 

            “The point was to make you lighten up,” he explained hastily. “You’ve kind of been in Broodsville for a while now.”

 

            Rey took another healthy gulp of her drink. “Can you blame me?” she pointed out testily. To the rest of the people at the table who weren’t seated with them during dinner, she added meaningfully: “We were seated with Kylo Ren.”

 

            There were several understanding nods and “ah”s of comprehension.

 

            “And his usual cronies, I suppose,” Jessika Pava concluded, smirking and shaking her head in contempt. “My sympathies.”

 

            “It wasn’t _so_ bad,” Rose insisted for the fourth time that evening. Rey had been complaining in the car, and was now a little miffed that her friend was not blindly taking her side. “They were actually pretty nice.” She nudged Finn. “Right?”

 

            “Phas was, in her way, but then she was the only one I really spoke to,” Finn conceded, with a careful not-quite-look in Rey’s direction.

 

            “You spoke to almost everyone,” Rose continued doggedly, looking at Rey squarely across the booth they were squeezed into. “And you seemed to be enjoying yourself.”

 

            Rey’s lips pursed and she drowned whatever bullshit she wanted to say in the rest of her Dark and Stormy. Rose was right, and perhaps in time she would come to appreciate how fair-minded her friend was being. The truth was, she _had_ been having a fairly good time at dinner. She’d even started to feel relative warmth towards Hux.

 

            _Hux._

 

            But of course, Kylo Ren never failed to undermine her efforts to grow as a person.

 

            “I just didn’t account for what a determined asshole Ren would be,” she admitted grudgingly, sliding her empty glass forward.

 

            “Though to be fair, you guys didn’t really interact at dinner,” Poe weighed in calmly.

 

            “Though to be _really_ fair,” Jessika added with a pointed arch of her brow, “one interaction with Ren can be one too many, depending on how shitty he decides to be.” She paused to accept Poe’s laughing, conciliatory toast before she turned back to Rey. “So what did he do to you, honey?”

 

            Rey hesitated, scanning the curious faces around her. Most were friendly acquaintances and friends of her friends—but Rey wasn’t exactly the type of person who opened up easily to just anyone about what she felt. An easygoing friend of Poe’s whom she only knew as Bastian seemed to understand that she wasn’t ready.

 

            “Looks like she’ll need a little more convincing before she tells us,” he remarked teasingly, waving a waitress over. “Dark and Stormy, was it?”

 

            Rey was genuinely impressed by how good service at First Dawn was, because her second drink was in her hand within the minute of the waitress nodding confirmation of her order. She took the period where the attention was off her to give the club a second look, wondering idly exactly how rich one had to be in order to afford _this_ much luxury.

 

            The club was located in the penthouse of a circular tower that overlooked the glittering city bordering their university town. The center of the club was illuminated with soft, golden light from the crystal vines that hung down from the high ceiling and the globe-like lamps that lit up the massive bar. Further from the center, however, the light diminished into the barest twinkling of LED pinpricks that created soft, bluish shadows broken only by the sparkling city lights beyond the glass. Under different circumstances, Rey would have been fascinated with the view—made doubly spectacular by the fact that the penthouse was mounted on a platform that was doing a slow, steady rotation.

 

            But with her second Dark and Stormy working its way through her system, she was much more involved in the conversation than the scenery.

 

            “So did Ren go stag to the dinner?” Yolo Ziff wanted to know. He had the deepest, bluest eyes Rey had ever seen and was a friend Rose had made in art class. “I figured he would when he didn’t ask Starwind.”

 

            Karé Kun took the shocked question right out of Rey’s mouth while Rey was still trying to come to grips with how her stomach plummeted. “Do he and Alli have a thing?”

 

            “ _No_ ,” Yolo said emphatically, his features contorting with frustration and disgust. “I thought they did, so I didn’t ask Starwind—then she showed up alone tonight and I felt like a total jackass.”

 

            “Gosh, I wish I’d known you could do that,” Rose said dryly. “I thought it was a rule that you _had_ to bring a date.”

 

            “Hey!” Poe gasped with mock offense.

 

            “ _And_ a date of the opposite sex,” Finn commiserated with a shake of his head.

 

            “Hey!” Rey groused, poking him in the arm.

 

            “For the record, it _is_ a rule,” Karé informed them laughingly, “though an unwritten one. Alli’s just gotten a smidge more rebellious lately, hasn’t she?”

 

            “Just a smidge?” Bastian’s tone was incredulous. “I was at the next table and I _still_ overheard her row with Hux over Malastare. It’s a wonder she hasn’t been charged with sedition yet.”

 

            “I knew I liked her,” Poe said admiringly. “Wish we’d gotten there in time to see it. Things were pretty tame when we were there.”

 

            “Were they?” Jessika asked, circling back to Rey. “Why were you so upset by Ren, then?”

 

            Rey waved at a waitress for a third drink before answering. “Because he made fun of desert-dwellers and called my home a junk heap.”

 

            “Did he?” Bazine Netal tilted her head, her delicate features and lilting voice still managing to convey a hint of venom despite her neutral tone. “What exactly did Ren have to say about desert-dwellers?”

 

            Rey faintly recalled someone telling her—Poe? Finn?—that Bazine was from Chaako City, the oasis-like metropolis in the same Western Reaches where one would find Jakku. And so she told the story with relish and a little more embellishment than was necessary.

 

            “Why is it that snobbery is more annoying when it’s casual?” Karé mused aloud. “Is it because it means that it’s more deeply ingrained?”

 

            “Tahiri Veila isn’t exactly someone a snob would date,” Bastian pointed out reasonably.

 

            “But she _is_ someone any red-blooded man would date,” Yolo added with a grin that made Rey want to clock him in the face with her drained third glass.

 

            Out of principle, of course, because even Tahiri didn’t deserve to be objectified like that.

 

            And because the fact that she could see why he would say that about Tahiri Veila made Rey want to curl up into a ball and die.

 

            Because she absolutely _loathed_ Tahiri Veila for no real, acceptable reason. She was smart, beautiful, and down-to-earth—the kind of person that Rey might have been friends with under different circumstances.

 

            Except she _was_ seeing Kylo Ren, so she couldn’t be that great.

 

            “He’s not seeing Tahiri,” Bazine said with a laugh. “He doesn’t really _see_ girls, if you know what I mean.”

 

            Rey froze, staring at the other girl as it became clear that she had just said her last thought aloud. Her mind scrambled wildly to process what Bazine meant, to remember exactly how much of her internal monologue she’d spewed, and to cover herself as she caught the looks her friends were giving her. She couldn’t quite read what they were thinking.

 

            “My point is,” she said with as much authority as she could muster, “it’s _Kylo Ren._ What would you see in _that?”_

 

            And she took aim at every flaw she could find: his stupidly perfect hair, his big ears and big nose, the way he lumbered around like a graceless behemoth.

 

            “And God, if that isn’t enough, have you heard the man _talk?”_ she asked, accepting another glass as her audience paused for breath in between laughs. Straightening in her seat and lifting her chin, she did her best hoity-toity. “ ‘As it happens, I have no memory of speaking with you that night. Our conversation must have been exceedingly unremarkable.’ ”

 

            Karé almost screamed with laughter. “ _What?_ Why the hell would he say _that?”_

 

            Poe took the liberty of answering as Rey nursed her drink. “I was surprised at how well you took it into stride!” he concluded with a snicker.

 

            “Toffee-nosed tosser,” Rey muttered with a roll of her eyes.

 

            She would never give have given him the satisfaction of knowing just how deeply he’d cut her with his cool, nonplussed reply. How small she’d felt in that moment, how utterly insignificant.

 

            “See?” she’d said to Finn with a laugh that she’d prayed wasn’t as hollow as she’d felt.

 

            If she was honest, she still felt quite empty. But it wasn’t the kind of empty she’d felt earlier. It was a light kind of empty—breezy and free. Like she shouldn’t be drinking a Stark and Dormy. She waved a waitress over, planning to ask for something else.

 

            Then Rose’s hand was on her arm and her friend’s face was unnervingly close to her own.

 

            “Are you okay?” Rose asked so softly that Rey might not have heard her if they weren’t so close.

 

            Rey gave her friend a dazzling smile. “I’m _perfect.”_

 

*

 

            As a rule, Kylo didn’t smoke. As a vice, he found it harder to moderate than drinking and recreational drug use. As a substance, he had trouble with the fact that nicotine seemed to be both a depressant _and_ a stimulant. If he couldn’t predict or control the effect that something was going to have on him, he didn’t go anywhere near it.

 

            But tonight was a night of exceptions, and to match the occasion he’d accepted a cigar from Voroll Thanisson and found himself a quiet corner on the club balcony to enjoy it alone.

 

             The hour he’d promised Tahiri at the club was almost up. What did it say about him that he was balking at the idea of taking her to one of the nearby hotels in the district and having himself a better evening?

 

            He took a deep drag of his cigar, hoping it would act as a stimulant. Maybe once he finished he might be able to marshal enough interest—or determination—to take her to bed.

 

            Which was really a fucking disrespectful way to think about a woman, if he was honest. He ought to just tell Tahiri that he had no real intentions towards her, honorable or otherwise.

 

            And perhaps for that noble thought—or the ignoble ones that preceded it—the universe decided to reward/punish him.

 

            Because that was _definitely_ Rey Kenobi stumbling towards the elevators by her lonesome.

 

            Kylo waited a beat, craning his head around to see if anyone was following her. When he saw no one, he frowned, noting the way she weaved unsteadily forward, one of her hands against the wall for support, that shimmery golden dress shifting around her body tantalizingly.

 

            Was she lost?

 

            Was she ill?

 

            Was it any of his business?

 

            He had enough scars from their encounters to last him a lifetime. He didn’t want fresh ones.

 

            Except what he wanted and what he apparently needed were two very different things.

 

            Decision made, Kylo ground the remaining half of his cigar into his ashtray.

 

*

           

            “What are you doing?”

 

            Rey turned as the deep voice sent prickles down her spine. “Oh, go away,” she snapped, fuming. _Of course_ he would pick now to try and talk to her. The night only wanted _this._

 

            Apparently, it wasn’t as effective at making him go anymore. Ren continued to stand there, his hands in his pockets, his dark hair and black coat being teased gently by the evening breeze. He was frowning at her again, but she was smarter now than to let him see how much it hurt when he frowned at her like that.

 

            _How annoying it is_ , she told herself fiercely. _Because it’s annoying._

 

            “What are you doing?” Kylo asked again, mystified by the persistent swinging of her arm. She was standing on the curb, her dress and loosened hair whipping around her in a picture of such gorgeous vulnerability that it was like an invitation to predators everywhere. He had hurried forward, terrified that some bastard might spot the weakness and try something.

 

            Rey rolled her eyes at him. “Hailing a cab, of course.”

 

            A Bentley Continental zoomed past, smoothly rounding the curve.

 

            “That wasn’t a cab,” Kylo said gently, rolling his tongue against the roof of his mouth to smooth out the laugh. He approached her slowly, cognizant of the suspicious way she looked at him even then. He had made the right decision to follow her. In the harsh light of the streetlamps and with half her makeup gone, she was still heartstoppingly beautiful—and as hooched up as he’d suspected she was when he’d spotted her leaving the party.

 

            “Wasn’t it?” Rey frowned, craning her neck around to try and spot the car that had long gone. “I could’ve sworn it was.”

 

            Ren could be lying, of course. But she really couldn’t remember what the vehicle had looked like, now that she put her mind to it. Setting the matter aside, she peered back down the road, where a pair of headlights beamed through the darkness.

 

            Ren’s voice was soft in an odd way . . . odd because it _didn’t_ get her hackles up for once. “Where are you going?”

 

            “Home,” Rey said, waving her hand determinedly. That _had_ to be a cab—it was bright yellow with black stripes and everything.

 

            “Alone?”

 

            She looked at him, the offer popping out of her mouth before she could stop herself. “Unless you want to come along?”

 

            Kylo’s mouth went dry, his throat tightening with an unfamiliar emotion as he took in her expression. Though her eyes were somewhat glazed over, the look in them was honest, and what he saw was something he wouldn’t have thought possible if he weren’t looking at her right then.

 

            Before he could reply, the Aston Martin Vantage slowed down and Rey yipped with delight, clapping her hands and shooting Ren a triumphant look. Then she squeaked as Ren hauled her up against him so tightly that she got a mouthful of his shirt.

 

            “Sorry,” Kylo called out to the driver who had rolled down his window, “she’s had a few.”

 

            “I could give her a ride,” the sleazy suit at the wheel said with a leer, his eyes trailing meaningfully over Rey’s back. Kylo knew for a fact that the fabric and cut of her dress proudly showcased her shapely rear.

 

            “Drive,” Kylo warned the knob quietly, and to his satisfaction the man paled and rolled his window up.

 

            As the car pulled away, Kylo dug out his phone, keeping an arm around Rey to make sure she didn’t topple over—though he would be lying if he wasn’t relishing the feel of having her lean against him for support. It helped soothe his irritation with her.

 

            “Just how many have you had?” he muttered, bending slightly so that she might hear him better. He could smell the sweet, sharp fumes rolling from her breath. When her face remained pressed against his chest he tried to step back, loosening his grip so that he could see how she looked.

 

            Rey squirmed against him then and Kylo’s breath caught as the movement made every muscle in his body tighten. He tipped his head down to say something along the lines of _“yes, baby, please”_ and _“stop, darling, stop”_ and instead repeated his favorite question of the night like a fucking parrot.

 

            “What are you doing?” he asked her, mystified by the fact that she was actually wiggling into him. Perhaps his synapses were still misfiring.

 

            “It’s cold,” came the muffled, grumpy reply. “And you won’t let me go home.”

 

            Cold air filled his lungs as he released the breath he was holding and laughed. He sobered instantly when Rey tipped her head back and glared up at him, her pointy chin resting against his chest.

 

            “Are you laughing at me, Ren?” she hissed, one small fist thumping against his chest.

 

            “No,” Kylo said evenly, lost in the freckles over her cheeks and nose, the rosy flush that seemed to highlight them. “I just said that if you stood still for one minute I might be able to get you home. Can you do that for me?”

 

            “Of course,” Rey said with a great deal of offense, closing her eyes and keeping very still.

 

            Kylo closed his own eyes and turned his face away. The way she was standing—with her face tipped up to his and her eyes closed—was giving him way too many ideas. Keeping a tight grip on his phone, he lifted his arm away from her so that he could pull his coat off. Ignoring Rey’s little gasp of pleasure when he threw the coat over her shoulders, he focused on booking them a car. He didn’t want his driver—who reported to Snoke—to see him leaving with Rey. As soon as he received confirmation that their car was two minutes away, he let himself look at her.

 

            As she had been when he’d first come up to her, Rey was engaging in some bizarre calisthenics—waving her hands around in front of her in circular motions. The sleeves of his coat went well past the end of her hands.

 

            “Bloody hell, your coat is _huge!”_ she remarked, laughing as she caught his eye. “How do you wear this thing? It’s almost a maxi dress!”

 

            _It looks good on you_ , he wanted to say. But then she twirled in it, and ridiculously enough he could see what she meant about it being dress-like on her—right before she toppled sideways.

 

            “For fuck’s sake,” Kylo muttered as he caught her. “If you want to keep it on, _stand still.”_

 

            Rey scowled back up at him. “No one asked you!” she shot back, trying to yank herself away from him, and it was the hurt in her eyes that had his hands tightening on her arms while his other instincts screamed at him to push her away.

 

            “Rey,” he said softly, sliding his hands down her arm in what he hoped was a soothing motion. “Please stand still. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

 

             She froze, as if transfixed, and in weeks to come Kylo would scramble to remember exactly how he had made her do it: the anger faded from her face and then it was all big hazel eyes and an almost penitent twist of her lips.

 

            “Okay,” Rey whispered docilely.

 

            If he weren’t half-afraid she’d snap his hand off for it, Kylo might have patted her on the head with an ill-considered “good girl.”

 

            Instead he tucked his coat around her as securely as he could, wishing for the first time that the damn thing had a belt. He kept his touch as light and clinical as possible, not wanting to push his luck and risk having her slap his hands away. Rey only moved to turn the collar up against the wind, grinning when the pointed edges almost touched her ears.

 

            “Vat do you think?” she asked, holding her arm up in front of her mouth and hissing for effect.

 

            Kylo could only stare as he absorbed the fact that she had just grinned at him. As his brain—and other parts of him—struggled to catch up, Rey rolled her eyes.

 

            “Oh come on, that was an amazing Count von Count!” she asserted. She tipped her head to the side, eyes narrowing. “You _do_ know Count von Count, right?”

 

            Kylo was spared from having to answer her question by the arrival of their car. As the Nissan Maxima pulled up, he put his arm around her as he guided her forward. Just in case she was still unsteady.

 

            Rey slid into the car with a sigh, scooting over to make room for him. After Kylo greeted the driver and confirmed the address of their dormitory, he turned to Rey and did what his more reasonable self had been insisting he do since he’d followed her.

 

            “Should we message your friends that you’re headed home?” he asked gently, watching Rey’s head loll back against the headrest.

 

            She cracked one eye open. “I guess? I think I may have forgotten my phone though.” She patted herself down. “Do you see my purse?”

 

            “What color is it?” Kylo asked dryly—having held her close several times that evening, he could confidently conclude that she had no purse on her person—then winced when he realized that his joke would go straight over her head in her current state.

 

            To his delight, she only stuck out her tongue at him. “I definitely forgot my phone. And my coat.” She rubbed her arms and sighed with pleasure. “I can’t believe I’m saying it, but thank God you were around, Ren.”

 

            “Well, I try,” Kylo answered with a private smirk. After a beat, he remembered to ask—“Why are you toddling around without your . . . ” He struggled to find appropriate words for Finn and Dameron, but only filth came to mind.

 

            She was quiet for so long that he wondered if she was falling asleep.

 

            “Rey?” he prompted.

 

            “ ‘Rey,’” she repeated in a low, growly voice he took to be an imitation of his own, her brows scrunching together disapprovingly a split second before she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but you say my name strangely!”

 

            Just then the car went over a speed bump and Rey reached for him to steady herself. Kylo tensed, his mind grasping for some sort of protocol for this kind of situation. Unfortunately, his mind drew a blank when she leaned against him and rested her head against his shoulder.

 

            “Why are you so interested in knowing where my friends are?” Rey asked idly, the slur of her speech pronounced by her voice’s softness.

 

            “Someone has to keep an eye on you,” Kylo replied, forcing himself to relax. “I’m not sure that it should be me.”

 

            “Is that why you came?” she asked, resting her chin against his shoulder, eyes wide. “To take care of me?”

 

            Kylo hesitated. He was almost sure that she would never remember his reply. All the same, telling her the complete truth went against all his instincts.  

 

            “You asked me if I wanted to come along,” he said simply.

 

            “I did, didn’t I?” Rey said after a moment’s pause. She lay her head back against his shoulder, wishing the world would stop spinning so that she could remember why.

 

            For a long moment, Kylo thought that her deep inhalation had been preparatory to a sigh that would slip her into sleep. Instead she turned her head and sniffed.

 

            “You smell nice,” she said after another moment, sounding disgruntled. “Why is that?”

 

            “I shower,” Kylo replied acerbically, though his muscles tensed as she nuzzled his shirt and took another deep breath. When she muttered something under her breath he ducked his head lower. “What was that?”

 

            “Jesus hates me,” she replied grimly. She then pressed her face to his shoulder.

 

            And that, apparently, was all she was going to say. Kylo absorbed the way she slowly unfolded against him, her weight pressing into his side as sleep claimed her. He tilted his chin down, wanting to press his face into her hair but not wanting to wake her—not when the slightest jolt from a speed bump had her muttering and rearranging herself more comfortably against him.

 

            So he lifted his arm and settled it carefully over her side, anchoring her against him and wishing that their dormitory was a million miles away.

 

*

             

            _I am never touching a drop of alcohol again_ , Rey swore fervently for the fifth time that morning. She’d spent a good hour leaning over a toilet with Rose hovering worriedly over her shoulder, her hand rubbing soothingly between Rey’s shoulder blades.

 

            Mercifully, Rose hadn’t asked her that many questions about what had happened. Not only had she been there for the cause of Rey’s hangover, it wasn’t as if Rey could provide her with an accurate picture of what had happened _after._

 

            Because Kylo Ren being nice to her was clearly an alcohol-induced fever dream.

 

            Rey pushed the borrowed sunglasses back up to the bridge of her nose as she walked down the drive. There was a convenience store about six blocks away with a coffee shop on its second floor. Finn—who was still touchingly distraught over how she’d disappeared on them the night before—had offered to make the coffee and medicine run, but Rey needed the walk. She needed the fresh air and the chance to get her bearings before she could really talk to any of her friends.

 

            Rose had said that she’d had over a dozen drinks by the time she’d stood up to go to the lavatory. To Rey’s mortification, she could only remember counting up to six. Rose had gone with her—that much she could remember—but Rey had left her there because Tahiri Veila had come in when Rose was still in a stall.

 

            She could remember the overwhelming, blind instinct to flee that the sight of Tahiri reapplying her smudged makeup had induced; the need to hide away in the safety of her room and cry; the well of panic that had spilled over as she’d felt another flash of pure, unadulterated hatred towards a girl who had barely said two sentences to her that night.

 

            Then . . . Rey scrubbed her fingers over her temples in frustration as bits and pieces of _after that_ came back to her.

 

            Ren’s hands on her arms; the almost-tender way he’d said her name; the smell of tobacco and something deeper and spicier; the firmness of his shoulder beneath her cheek; his steadiness and patience as he’d guided her up to her room.

 

            _Fuck me, Kylo Ren actually brought me to my room,_ she processed frantically, her gorge rising in horror. _Please Jesus, don’t let him have tucked me in. If you love me even a little, don’t let him have tucked me in._

 

            As if in answer—in a probable _fuck you_ —the universe brought her Phasma’s crisp, clear voice calling her name.

 

            Rey straightened and pulled her hands away from her face to see her newest friend—though Phasma had a peculiar way of being a friend—crossing the street with a long, elegantly tousled shadow on her heels.

 

            _Why God, why?_

 

            “Morning constitutional?” Phasma inquired with only slight mockery, noting how Finn’s shades were oversized on Rey. They had slipped down low enough for her to see the redness of Rey’s eyes—as if the chalkiness of her skin and messily-tied hair didn’t already speak volumes.

 

            Rey’s smile was practically a grimace. “Just need some coffee.”

 

            Phasma knew the instant Kylo came up to her side from the way Rey's posture became exceedingly _correct_ and how she pushed the shades back up self-consciously. A vibrant pink blush was climbing up her white throat and she seemed desperate to look anywhere but at him. When Phasma threw a quick glance sideways, she saw that, for his part, Ren looked about as decidedly besotted as the repressed sod could be. She let another fifteen seconds of deliciously excruciating silence pass before she got bored.

 

            “You two know each other, right?” Phasma asked in bright, transparently feigned ignorance.

 

            Rey swallowed and forced herself to look up.   

 

            “Ren,” she greeted cautiously.

 

            “Kenobi.” Kylo smiled faintly at her, remembering the exuberant, eccentric girl he’d experienced the night before. The one who’d challenged him and sniped at him, then wrinkled her nose up at him and laughed. The one who’d tried to crawl into him to get warm, let him catch her and bundle her up, slept against his shoulder, and complained grumpily about how he smelled.

 

            How _nice_ he smelled.

 

            It was apparently the snipe he was getting this morning. For some reason, his pleasant greeting apparently merited a glower. Making an angry noise in her throat, Rey brushed past him without another word.

 

            And this time, by some miracle, it didn’t hurt when she did. Kylo turned to watch her go, a huff of laughter escaping him when she kicked what looked like a pebble out of her way before self-consciously looking back at him. When their eyes met she sent him another death-glare before marching resolutely off.

           

            “You do know that she was making fun of you last night,” Phasma pointed out, a little unnerved by how well Ren was taking Rey’s brush-off. Usually he acted like a bleeding twat for days whenever Rey made him shove off. “She even copied how you talk.”

 

            Kylo grinned, the rare expression making Phasma’s jaw drop. “I’ll take it as a compliment. She pays enough attention to know what I sound like.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are love! 
> 
> Before I go, the next chapter can go two ways. Do I keep up the fluff or do I go darker but build up plot? Let me know! Happy Easter!


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